APPLETONS'  NEW  HANDY^^VOWME  !>Em£8. 


THE 


ESSAYS   OF  ELIA 


BY 

CHARLES    LAMB. 


FJBS7  SERIES. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

649  AND  551  BROADWAY. 

1879. 


t  •  •      •• 
>•  •    •  • 

•  •    • 


& 

^S"* 


(JOE"TES"TS. 


PAGE 

The  South-Sea  House              ....  5 

Oxford  in  the  Vacation  .            .            .            .  .15 

Christ's  Hospital  Five-and-Thirty  Years  ago  .          22 

The  Two  Races  of  Men   .            .            .            .  .     89 

New-Year's-Eve            .            .            .            .  .          46 

Mrs.  Battle's  Opinions  on  Whist            .            .  .54 

A  Chapter  on  Ears     .            .            .            .  .63 

All-Fools'-Day       .            ,            .            .            .  .69 

A  Quakers'  Meeting    .            .            .            .  .74 

The  Old  and  the  New  Schoolmaster      .            .  .80 

Valentine's-Day           .             .            .            .  .91 

Imperfect  Sympathies        .            .            .            .  .95 

Witches,  and  other  Night-Fears       .            .  .         105 

My  Relations         .            .            .            .            .  .113 

Mackery  End,  in  Hertfordshire        .            .  .        121 

Modern  Gallantry             .            .            .            .  .127 

The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple      .  .        133 

Grace  before  Meat           .            .            .            .  .147 

My  First  Play             .            .            .            .  .155 

Dream-Children:   a  Reverie        ....  161 


4  CONTENTS. 

3>AGE 

Distant  Correspondents  .  .  .  .        166 

The  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers  .  .  .173 

A  Complaint  of  the  Decay  op  Beggars  in  the  Metrop- 
olis ......         183 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast-Pig  ....  193 

A  Bachelor's  Complaint  op  the  Behavior  op  Married 

People       .  .  .  .  .  .202 

On  some  of  the  Old  Actors        .  .  .  .211 

On  the  Artificial  Comedy  of  :iie  Last  Century    .        226 
On  the  Acting  op  Munden  .  ,  .  .236 


THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 


THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE. 

Reader,  in  thy  passage  from  the  Bank — where  thou 
hast  been  receiving  thy  half-yearly  dividends  (supposing 
thou  art  a  lean  annuitant  like  myself) — to  the  Flower 
Pot,  to  secure  a  place  for  Dalston,  or  Shacklewell,  or 
some  other  suburban  retreat  northerly,  didst  thou  never 
observe  a  melancholy-looking,  handsome,  brick-and-stone 
edifice,  to  the  left — where  Threadneedle  Street  abuts 
upon  Bishopsgate?  I  dare  say  thou  hast  often  ad- 
mired its  magnificent  portals  ever  gaping  wide  and  dis- 
closing to  view  a  grave  court,  with  cloisters,  and  pillars, 
with  few  or  no  traces  of  goers-in  or  comers-out — a  deso- 
lation something  like  Balclutha's.* 

This  was  once  a  house  of  trade — a  centre  of  busy  in- 
terests. The  throng  of  merchants  was  here — the  quick 
pulse  of  gain — and  here  some  forms  of  business  are  still 
kept  up,  though  the  soul  be  long  since  fled.  Here  are 
still  to  be  seen  stately  porticoes ;  imposing  staircases, 
offices  roomy  as  the  state  apartments  in  palaces — desert- 
ed, or  thinly  peopled  with  a  few  straggling  clerks ;  the 
still  more  sacred  interiors  of  court  and  committee-rooms, 

1 1  passed  by  the  walls  of  Balclutha,  and  they  were  desolate. 

— OSSIAN. 


'Q   '    '  '   '         THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

with  venerable  faces  of  beadles,  door-keepers — direc- 
tors seated  in  form  on  solemn  days  (to  proclaim  a  dead 
dividend),  at  long,  worm-eaten  tables,  that  have  been 
mahogany,  with  tarnished  gilt-leather  coverings,  sup- 
porting massy  silver  inkstands  long  since  dry ;  the  oaken 
wainscots  hung  with  pictures  of  deceased  governors  and 
sub-governors,  of  Queen  Anne,  and  the  two  first  mon- 
archs  of  the  Brunswick  dynasty;  huge  charts,  which 
subsequent  discoveries  have  antiquated ;  dusty  maps  of 
Mexico,  dim  as  dreams,  and  soundings  of  the  Bay  of 
Panama !  The  long  passages  hung  with  buckets,  append- 
ed, in  idle  row,  to  walls,  whose  substance  might  defy 
any,  short  of  the  last,  conflagration :  with  vast  ranges  of 
cellarage  under  all,  where  dollars  and  pieces-of-eight 
once  lay,  an  '*  unsunned  heap,"  for  Mammon  to  have 
solaced  his  solitary  heart  withal,  long  since  dissipated, 
or  scattered  into  air  at  the  blast  of  the  breaking  of  that 
famous  Bubble. — 

Such  is  the  South- Ska  House.  At  least,  such  it  was 
forty  years  ago,  when  I  knew  it,  a  magnificent  relic ! 
"What  alterations  may  have  been  made  in  it  since,  I  have 
had  no  opportunities  of  verifying.  Time,  I  take  for  grant- 
ed, has  not  freshened  it.  ^o  wind  has  resuscitated  tho 
face  of  the  sleeping  waters.  A  thicker  crust  by  this 
time  stagnates  upon  it.  The  moths,  that  were  then  bat- 
tening upon  its  obsolete  ledgers  and  day-books,  have 
rested  from  their  depredations,  but  other  light  genera- 
tions have  succeeded,  making  fine  fretwork  among  their 
single  and  double  entries.  Layers  of  dust  have  accumu- 
lated (a  superfetation  of  dirt !)  upon  the  old  layers,  that 
seldom  used  to  be  disturbed,  save  by  some  curious  finger, 
now  and  then,  inquisitive  to  explore  the  mode  of  book- 
keeping in  Queen  Anne's  reign ;  or,  with  less  hallowed 


THE  SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  7 

curiosity,  seeking  to  unveil  some  of  the  mysteries  of  that 
tremendous  hoax,  whose  extent  the  petty  peculators  of 
our  day  look  hack  upon  with  the  same  expression  of 
incf  edulous  admiration,  and  hopeless  ambition  of  rivalry, 
as  would  become  the  puny  face  of  modern  conspiracy 
contemplating  the  Titan  size  of  Yaux's  superhuman  plot. 

Peace  to  the  manes  of  the  Bubble  !  Silence  and  des- 
titution are  upon  thy  walls,  proud  house,  for  a  memo- 
rial! 

Situated  as  thou  art,  in  the  very  heart  of  stirring  and 
living  commerce,  amid  the  fret  and  fever  of  speculation 
— with  the  Bank,  and  the  'Change,  and  the  India-house 
about  thee,  in  the  heyday  of  present  prosperity,  with 
their  important  faces,  as  it  were,  insulting  thee,  their  poor 
neighbor  out  of  business — to  the  idle  and  merely  contem- 
plative, to  such  as  me,  old  house !  there  is  a  cliarm  in 
thy  quiet :  a  cessation — a  coolness  from  business — an  in- 
dolence almost  cloistral — which  is  delightful!  With 
what  reverence  have  I  paced  thy  great  bare  rooms  and 
courts  at  eventide!  They  spoke  of  the  past :  the  shade 
of  some  dead  accountant,  with  visionary  pen  in  ear, 
would  flit  by  me,  stiff  as  in  life.  Living  accounts  and  ac- 
countants puzzle  me.  I  have  no  skill  in  figuring.  But  thy 
great  dead  tomes,  which  scarce  three  degenerate  clerks  of 
the  present  day  could  lift  from  their  enshrining  shelves — 
with  their  old  fantastic  flourishes  and  decorative  rubric 
interlacings,  their  sums  in  triple  columniations,  set 
down  with  formal  superfluity  of  ciphers,  with  pious 
sentences  at  the  beginning,  without  which  our  religious 
ancestors  never  ventured  to  open  a  book  of  business  or 
bill  of  lading ;  the  costly  vellum  covers  of  some  of  them 
almost  persuading  us  that  we  are  got  into  some  better 
libra/ry — are  very  agreeable  and  edifying  spectacles.    I 


8  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

can  look  upon  these  defunct  dragons  with  complacGnoy. 
Thy  heavy,  odd-shaped,  ivory-handled  penknives  (our 
ancestors  had  everything  on  a  larger  scale  than  we  have 
hearts  for)  are  as  good  as  anything  from  Herculaneum. 
The  pounce-hoxes  of  our  days  have  gone  retrograde. 

The  very  clerks  which  I  remember  in  the  South-Sea 
House — I  speak  of  forty  years  hack— had  an  air  very 
different  from  those  in  the  public  offices  that  I  have  had 
to  do  with  since.  They  partook  of  the  genius  of  the 
place  I 

They  were  mostly  (for  the  establishment  did  not  ad- 
mit of  superfluous  salaries)  bachelors.  Generally  (for 
they  had  not  much  to  do)  persons  of  a  curious  and  spec- 
ulative turn  of  mind.  Old-fashioned,  for  a  reason  men- 
tioned before.  Humorists,  for  they  were  of  all  descrip- 
tions ;  and,  npt  having  been  brought  together  in  early 
life  (which  has  a  tendency  to  assimilate  the  members  of 
corporate  bodies  to  each  other),  but,  for  the  most  part, 
placed  in  this  house  in  ripe  or  middle  age,  they  neces- 
sarily carried  into  it  their  separate  habits  and  oddities, 
unquahfied,  if  I  may  so  speak,  as  into  a  common  stock. 
Hence  they  formed  a  sort  of  IToah's  ark.  Odd  fishes. 
A  lay  monastery.  Domestic  retainers  in  a  great  house, 
kept  more  for  show  than  use.  Yet  pleasant  fellows,  full 
of  chat — and  not  ai  few  among  them  had  arrived  at  con- 
siderable proficiency  on  the  German  flute. 

The  cashier  at  that  time  was  one  Evans,  a  Oambro- 
Briton.  He  had  something  of  the  choleric  complexion 
of  his  countrymen  stamped  on  his  visage,  but  was  a 
worthy,  sensible  man  at  bottom.  He  wore  his  hair,  to 
the  last,  powdered  and  frizzed  out,  in  the  fashion  which 
I  remember  to  have  seen  in  caricatures  of  what  were 
termed,  in  my  young  days.  Macaronis.    He  was  the  last 


THE  SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  9 

of  that  race  of  beaux.  Melancholy  as  a  gibcat  over 
his  counter  all  the  forenoon,  I  think  I  see  him,  making 
up  his  cash  (as  they  call  it)  with  tremulous  fingers,  as  if 
he  feared  every  one  about  him  was  a  defaulter ;  in  his 
hypochondry  ready  to  imagine  himself  one  ;  haunted,  at 
least,  with  the  idea  of  the  possibility  of  his  becoming 
one ;  his  tristful  visage  clearing  up  a  little  over  his  roast 
neck  of  veal  at  Anderton's  at  two  (where  his  picture 
still  hangs,  taken  a  little  before  his  death  by  desire  of  the 
master  of  the  coffee-house,  which  he  had  frequented  for 
the  last  five-and-twenty  years),  but  not  attaining  the 
meridian  of  its  animation  till  evening  brought  on  tlio 
hour  of  tea  and  visiting.  The  simultaneous  sound  of  his 
well-known  rap  at  the  door  with  the  stroke  of  the  clock 
announcing  six,  was  a  topic  of  never-failing  mirth  in  the 
families  which  this  dear  old  bachelor  gladdened  with  his 
presence.  Then  was  his  forte^  his  glorified  hour!  How 
would  he  chirp,  and  expand,  over  a  muffin !  How  would 
he  dilate  into  secret  history !  His  countryman,  Pennant 
himself,  in  particular,  could  not  be  more  eloquent  than 
he  in  relation  to  old  and  new  London — the  site  of  old 
theatres,  churches,  streets  gone  to  decay — where  Rosa- 
mond's Pond  stood — the  Mulberry  Gardens — and  the 
Conduit  in  Cheap — with  many  a  pleasant  anecdote,  de- 
rived from  paternal  tradition,  of  those  grotesque  figures 
which  Hogarth  has  immortalized  in  his  picture  of  Noon — 
the  worthy  descendants  of  those  heroic  confessors,  who, 
flying  to  this  country,  from  the  wrath  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
his  dragoons,  kept  alive  the  flame  of  pure  religion  in  the 
sheltering  obscurities  of  Hog  Lane,  and  the  vicinity  of 
the  Seven  Dials ! 

Deputy,  under  Evans,  was  Thomas  Tame.     He  had 
the  air  and  stoop  of  a  nobleman.     You  would  have 


10  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

taken  him  for  one,  had  you  met  him  in  one  of  the  pas- 
sages leading  to  Westminster  Hall.  By  stoop,  I  mean  that 
gentle  bending  of  the  body  forward,  which,  in  great 
men,  must  be  supposed  to  be  the  effect  of  an  habitual 
condescending  attention  to  the  applications  of  their  in- 
feriors. While  he  held  you  in  converse,  you  felt  strained 
to  the  height  in  the  colloquy.  The  conference  over,  you 
were  at  leisure  to  smile  at  the  comparative  insignificance 
of  the  pretensions  which  had  just  awed  you.  His  intel- 
lect was  of  the  shallowest  order.  It  did  not  reach  to  a 
saw  or  a  proverb.  His  mind  was  in  its  original  state  of 
white  paper.  A  sucking  babe  might  have  posed  him. 
What  was  it,  then?  Was  he  rich?  Alas  I  no.  Thomas 
Tame  was  very  poor.  Both  he  and  his  wife  looked  out- 
wardly gentlefolks,  when  I  fear  all  was  not  well  at  all 
times  within.  She  had  a  neat,  meagre  person,  which  it 
was  evident  she  had  not  sinned  in  over-pampering ;  but 
in  its  veins  was  noble  blood.  She  traced  her  descent,  by 
some  labyrinth  of  relationship,  which  I  never  thoroughly 
understood — much  less  can  explain  with  any  heraldic 
certainty  at  this  time  of  day — to  the  illustrious  but  un- 
fortunate house  of  Der  went  water.  This  was  the  secret 
of  Thomas's  stoop.  This  was  the  thought — the  senti- 
ment— the  bright,  solitary  star  of  your  lives — ye  mild  and 
happy  pair — which  cheered  you  in  the  night  of  intellect, 
and  in  the  obscurity  of  your  station  I  This  was  to  you 
instead  of  riches,  instead  of  rank,  instead  of  glittering 
attainments :  and  it  was  worth  them  all  together.  You 
insulted  none  with  it ;  but,  while  you  wore  it  as  a  piece 
of  defensive  armor  only,  no  insult  likewise  could  reach 
you  through  it.     Decus  et  solamen. 

Of  quite  another  stamp  was  the  then  accountant,  John 
Tipp.    He  neither  pretended  to  high  blood,  nor,  in  good 


THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  H 

truth,  cared  one  fig  about  the  matter.  He  *'  thought  an 
accountant  the  greatest  character  in  the  world,  and  him- 
self the  greatest  accountant  in  Jt."  Yet  John  was  not 
without  his  hobby.  The  fiddle  relieved  his  vacant  hours. 
He  sang,  certainly,  with  other  notes  than  to  the  Orphean 
lyre.  He  did,  indeed,  scream  and  scrape  most  abomi- 
nably. His  fine  suite  of  official  rooms  in  Threadneedle 
Street,  which,  without  anything  very  substantial  ap- 
pended to  them,  were  enough  to  enlarge  a  man's  notions 
of  himself  that  lived  in  them  (I  know  not  who  is  the 
occupier  of  them  now),  resounded  fortnightly  to  the 
notes  of  a  concert  of  "  sweet  breasts,"  as  our  ancestors 
would  have  called  them,  culled  from  club-rooms  and  or- 
chestras— chorus-singers — first  and  second  violoncellos — 
double  basses — and  clarionets — who  ate  his  cold  mutton, 
and  drank  his  punch,  and  praised  his  ear.  He  sate  like 
Lord  Midas  among  them.  But  at  the  desk  Tipp  was 
quite  another  sort  of  creature.  Thence  all  ideas,  that 
were  purely  ornamental,  were  banished.  You  could  not 
speak  of  anything  romantic  without  rebuke.  Politics 
were  excluded.  A  newspaper  was  thought  too  refined 
and  abstracted.  The  whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in 
writing  off  dividend  warrants.  The  striking  of  the  an- 
nnal  balance  in  the  company's  books  (which,  perhaps, 
differed  from  the  balance  of  last  year  in  the  sum  of  £25 
Is.  6d.)  occupied  his  days  and  nights  for  a  month  previ- 
ous. Not  that  Tipp  was  blind  to  the  deadness  of  things 
(as  they  call  them  in  the  city)  in  his  beloved  house,  or 
did  not  sigh  for  a  return  of  the  old  stirring  days  when 
South-Sea  hopes  were  young — (he  was  indeed  equal  to 
the  wielding  of  any  the  most  intricate  accounts  of  the 
most  flourishing  company  in  these  or  those  days) — but 
to  a  genuine  accountant  the  difference  of  proceeds  is  as 


12  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

nothing.  The  fractional  farthing  is  as  dear  to  his  heart 
as  the  thousands  which  stand  before  it.  He  is  the  true 
actor,  who,  whether  his  part  be  a  prince  or  a  peasant, 
must  act  it  with  like  intensity.  "With  Tipp  form  was 
everything.  His  life  was  formal.  His  actions  seemed 
ruled  with  a  ruler.  His  pen  was  not  less  erring  than  his 
heart.  He  made  the  best  executor  in  the  world ;  he  was 
plagued  with  incessant  executorships  accordingly,  which 
excited  his  spleen  and  soothed  his  vanity  in  equal  ratios. 
He  would  swear  (for  Tipp  swore)  at  the  little  orphans, 
whose  rights  he  would  guard  with  a  tenacity  like  the 
grasp  of  the  dying  hand,  that  commended  their  interests 
to  his  protection.  With  all  this  there  was  about  him  a 
sort  of  timidity — (his  few  enemies  used  to  give  it  a  worse 
name) — a  something  which,  in  reference  to  the  dead,  we 
will  place,  if  you  please,  a  little  on  this  side  of  the  he- 
roic. Nature  certainly  had  been  pleased  to  endow  John 
Tipp  with  a  sufficient  measure  of  the  principle  of  self- 
preservation.  There  is  a  cowardice  which  we  do  not 
despise,  because  it  has  nothing  base  or  treacherous  in  its 
elements ;  it  betrays  itself,  not  you :  it  is  mere  tempera- 
ment; the  absence  of  the  romantic  and  the  enterprising; 
it  sees  a  lion  in  the  way,  and  will  not,  with  Fortinbras, 
**  greatly  find  quarrel  in  a  straw,"  when  some  supposed 
honor  is  at  stake.  Tipp  never  mounted  the  box  of  a 
stage-coach  in  his  life ;  or  leaned  against  the  rails  of  a 
balcony;  or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a  parapet;  or 
looked  down  a  precipice ;  or  let  off  a  gun  ;  or  went  upon 
a  water-party ;  or  would  willingly  let  you  go,  if  he  could 
have  helped  it ;  neither  was  it  recorded  of  him  that,  for 
lucre,  or  for  intimidation,  he  ever  forsook  friend  or 
principle. 

Whom  next  shall  we  summon  from  the  dusty  dead,  in 


THE   SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE.  13 

whom  common  qualities  become  uncommon  ?  Can  I  for- 
get thee,  Henry  Man,  the  wit,  the  polished  man  of  let- 
ters, the  author^  of  the  South-Sea  House?  who  never 
enteredst  thy  office  in  a  morning,  or  quittedst  it  in 
mid-day — (what  didst  thou  in  an  office  ?) — without  some 
quirk  that  left  a  sting !  Thy  gibes  and  thy  jokes  are  now 
extinct,  or  survive  but  in  two  forgotten  volumes,  which 
I  had  the  good  fortune  to  rescue  from  a  stall  in  Barbican, 
not  three  days  ago,  and  found  thee  terse,  fresh,  epigram- 
matic, as  alive.  Thy  wit  is  a  little  gone  by  in  these  fas- 
tidious days — thy  topics  are  staled  by  the  "new-born 
gauds  "  of  the  time ;  but  great  thou  usedst  to  be  in  Public 
Ledgers,  and  in  Chronicles,  upon  Chatham,  andlBhel- 
burne,  and  Rockingham,  and  Howe,  and  Burgoyne,  and 
Clinton,  and  the  war  which  ended  in  the  tearing  from 
Great  Britain  her  rebellious  colonies — and  Keppel,  and 
Wilkes,  and  Sawbridge,  and  Bull,  and  Dunning,  and 
'  Pratt,  and  Richmond — and  such  small  politics. — 

A  little  less  facetious,  and  a  great  deal  more  obstrep- 
erous, was  fine,  rattling,  rattle-headed  Plumer.  He  was 
descended — not  in  a  right  line,  reader  (for  his  lineal  pre- 
tensions, like  his  personal,  favored  a  little  of  the  sinister 
bend) — ^from  the  Plumers  of  Hertfordshire.  So  tradition 
gave  him  out;  and  certain  family  features  not  a  little 
sanctioned  the  opinion.  Certainly  old  Walter  Plumer 
(his  reputed  author)  had  been  a  rake  in  his  days,  and 
visited  much  in  Italy,  and  had  seen  the  world.  He  was 
uncle,  bachelor-uncle,  to  the  fine  old  Whig  still  living, 
who  has  represented  the  county  in  so  many  successive 
Parliaments,  and  has  a  fine  old  mansion  near  Ware. 
Walter  flourished  in  George  the  Second's  days,  and  was 
the  same  who  was  summoned  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons about  a  business  of  franks,  with  the  old  Duchess 


14  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

of  Marlborougli.  You  may  read  of  it  in  Johnson's  *'Life 
of  Cave."  Gave  came  off  cleverly  in  that  business.  It 
is  certain  our  Plumer  did  nothing  to  discountenance  the 
rumor.  He  rather  seemed  pleased  whenever  it  was,  with 
all  gentleness  insinuated.  But,  besides  his  family  preten- 
sions, Plumer  was  an  engaging  fellow,  and  sang  glori- 
ously.— 

Not  so  sweetly  sang  Plumer  as  thou  sangest,  mild, 
childlike,  pastoral  M ;  a  flute's  breathing  less  divine- 
ly whispering  than  thy  Arcadian  melodies,  when,  in 
tones  worthy  of  Arden,  thou'  didst  chant  that  song  sung 
by  Amiens  to  the  banished  duke,  which  proclaims  the 
winl^r  wind  more  lenient  than  for  a  man  to  be  ungrate- 
ful.    Thy  sire  was  old  surly  M ,  the  unapproachable 

churchwarden  of  Bishopsgate.  He  knew  not  what  he 
did,  when  he  begat  thee,  like  spring,  gentle  offspring  of 
blustering  winter :  only  unfortunate  in  thy  ending,  which 
should  have  been  mild,  conciliatory,  swan-like. — 

Much  remains  to  sing.  Many  fantastic  shapes  rise 
up,  but  they  must  be  mine  in  private — already  I  have 
fooled  the  reader  to  the  top  of  his  bent — else  could  I 
omit  that  strange  creature  WooUett,  who  existed  in  trying 
the  question,  and  lougM  litigations  f — and  still  stranger, 
inimitable,  solemn  Hep  worth,  from  whose  gravity  New- 
ton might  have  deduced  the  law  of  gravitation.  How 
profoundly  would  he  nib  a  pen — with  what  dehberation 
would  he  wet  a  wafer! — 

But  it  is  time  to  close — night's  wheels  are  rattling 
fast  over  me — it  is  proper  to  have  done  with  this  solemn 
mockery. 

Reader,  what  if  I  have  been  playing  with  thee  all  this 
while  ? — peradventure  the  very  names  which  I  have  sum- 


OXFORD  IN  THE  VACATION.  15 

moned  up  before  thee  are  fantastic — unsubstantial — like 
Henry  Pimpernel,  and  old  John  Naps  of  Greece. — 

Be  satisfied  that  something  answering  to  them  has 
had  a  being.    Their  importance  is  from  the  past. 


OXFORD  IN  THE  YAOATIOJST. 

Casting  a  preparatory  glance  at  the  bottom  of  this 
article — as  the  wary  connoisseur  in  prints,  with  cursory 
eye  (which,  while  it  reads,  seems  as  though  it  read  not), 
never  fails  to  consult  the  quis  sculpsit  in  the  corner,  be- 
fore he  pronounces  some  rare  piece  to  be  a  Yivares,  or  a 
WooUet — methinks  I  hear  you  exclaim,  reader.  Who  is 
Elia? 

Because  in  my  last  I  tried  to  divert  thee  with  some 
half-forgotten  humors  of  some  old  clerks  defunct,  in  an 
old  house  of  business,  long  since  gone  to  decay,  doubt- 
less, you  have  already  set  me  down  in  your  mind  as  one 
of  the  self-same  college — a  votary  of  the  desk — a  notched 
and  cropped  scrivener — one  that  sucks  his  sustenance,  as 
certain  sick  people  are  said  to  do,  through  a  quill. 

Well,  I  do  agnize  something  of  the  sort.  I  confess 
that  it  is  my  humor,  my  fancy — in  the  fore-part  of  the 
day,  when  the  mind  of  your  man  of  letters  requires  some 
relaxation — (and  none  better  than  such  as  at  first  sight 
seems  most  abhorrent  from  his  beloved  studies) — to  while 
away  some  good  hours  of  my  time  in  the  contemplation 
of  indigos,  cottons,  raw  silks,  piece-goods,  flowered  or 
otherwise.  In  the  first  place  ....  and  then  it  sends 
you  home  with  such  increased  appetite  to  your  books 
....  not  to  say,  that  your  outside  sheets,  and  waste 


16  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

wrappers  of  foolscap,  do  receive  into  them,  most  kindly 
and  naturally,  the  impression  of  sonnets,  epigrams,  es- 
says— so  that  the  very  parings  of  a  counting-house  are, 
in  some  sort,  the  settings-up  of  an  author.  The  enfran- 
chised quill,  that  has  plodded  all  the  morning  among 
the  cart-rucks  of  figures  and  ciphers,  frisks  and  curvets 
so  at  its  ease  over  the  flowery  carpet-ground  of  a  mid- 
night dissertation.  It  feels  its  promotion.  ...  So  that 
you  see,  upon  the  whole,  the  literary  dignity  of  Mia 
is  very  little,  if  at  all,  compromised  in  the  condescen- 
sion. 

Not  that,  in  my  anxious  detail  of  the  many  commodi- 
ties incidental  to  the  life  of  a  public  office,  I  would  be 
thought  blind  to  certain  flaws,  which  a  cunning  carper 
might  be  able  to  pick  in  this  Joseph's  vest.  And  here  I 
must  have  leave,  in  the  fullness  of  my  soul,  to  regret  the 
abolition,  and  doing-away-with  altogether,  of  those  con- 
solatory interstices,  and  sprinklings  of  freedom,  through 
the  four  seasons — the  red-letter  days,  now  become,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  dead-letter  days.  There  was  Paul, 
and  Stephen,  and  Barnabas — 

"Andrew  and  John,  men  famous  in  old  times  " 

— we  were  used  to  keep  all  their  days  holy,  as  long  back 
as  I  was  at  school  at  Christ's.  I  remember  their  effigies, 
by  the  same  token,  in  the  old  Basket  Prayer-Book.  There 
hung  Peter  in  his  uneasy  posture — holy  Bartlemy  in  the 
troublesome  act  of  flaying,  after  the  famous  Marsyas  by 
Spagnoletti.  I  honored  them  all,  and  could  almost  have 
wept  the  defalcation  of  Iscariot — so  much  did  we  love  to 
keep  holy  memories  sacred — only  methought  I  a  little 
grudged  at  the  coalition  of  the  better  Jude  with  Simon — 
clubbing  (as  it  were)  their  sanctities  together,  to  make 


OXFORD  IN   THE  VACATION.  17 

up  one  poor  gaudy-day  between  them — as  an  economy 
unworthy  of  the  dispensation. 

These  were  bright  visitations  in  a  scholar^ s  and  a 
clerk's  hfe — **far  off  their  coming  shone."  I  was  as 
good  as  an  almanac  in  those  days.  I  could  have  told  you 
such  a  saint' s-day  falls  out  next  week,  or  the  week  after. 
Peradventure  the  Epiphany,  by  some  periodical  infelicity, 
would,  once  in  six  years,  merge  in  a  Sabbath.  Now  am 
I  little  better  than  one  of  the  profane.  Let  me  not  be 
thought  to  arraign  the  wisdom  of  my  civil  superiors,  who 
have  judged  the  further  observation  of  these  holy  tides 
to  be  papistical,  superstitious.  Only  in  a  custom  of  such 
long  standing,  methinks,  if  their  Holinesses  the  Bishops 
had,  in  decency,  been  first  sounded — but  I  am  wading 
out  of  my  depths.  I  am  not  the  man  to  decide  the  limits 
of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority — I  am  plain  Elia — no 
Selden,  nor  Archbishop  Usher — though  at  present  in  the 
thick  of  their  books,  here  in  the  heart  of  learning,  under 
the  shadow  of  the  mighty  Bodley. 

I  can  here  play  the  gentleman,  enact  the  student.  To 
such  a  one  as  myself,  who  has  been  defrauded  in  his 
young  years  of  the  sweet  food  of  academic  institution, 
nowhere  is  so  pleasant,  to  while  away  a  few  idle  weeks 
at,  as  one  or  other  of  the  Universities.  Their  vacation, 
too,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  falls  in  so  pat  with  ours. 
Here  I  can  take  my  walks  unmolested,  and  fancy  myself 
of  what  degree  or  standing  I  please.  I  seem  admitted  ad 
eundem.  I  fetch  up  past  opportunities.  I  can  rise  at  the 
chapel-bell,  and  dream  that  it  rings  for  me.  In  moods  of 
humility  I  can  be  a  Sizar,  or  a  Servitor.  When  the  pea- 
cock vein  rises,  I  strut  a  Gentleman  Commoner.  In 
graver  moments,  I  proceed  Master  of  Arts.  Indeed,  I  do 
not  think  I  am  much  unlike  that  respectable  character. 
2 


18  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

I  have  seen  your  dim-eyed  vergers,  and  bed-makers  in 
spectacles,  drop  a  bow  or  a  courtesy,  as  I  pass,  wisely  mis- 
taking me  for  something  of  the  sort.  I  go  about  in  black, 
which  favors  the  notion.  Only  in  Christ  Church  rev- 
erend quadrangle,  I  can  be  content  to  pass  for  nothing 
short  of  a  Seraphic  Doctor. 

The  walks  at  these  times  are  so  much  one's  own — the 
tall  trees  of  Christ's,  the  groves  of  Magdalen !  The  halls 
deserted,  and,  with  open  doors,  inviting  one  to  slip  in 
unperceived,  and  pay  a  devoir  to  some  Founder,  or  no- 
ble, or  royal  Benefactress  (that  should  have  been  ours), 
whose  portrait  seems  to  smile  upon  their  overlooked 
beadsman,  and  to  adopt  me  for  their  own.  Then,  to 
take  a  peep  in  by  the  way  at  the  butteries,  and  sculleries, 
redolent  of  antique  hospitality:  the  immense  caves  of 
kitchens,  kitchen  fireplaces,  cordial  recesses;  ovens 
whose  first  pies  were  baked  four  centuries  ago ;  and 
spits  which  have  cooked  for  Chaucer !  Not  the  mean- 
est minister  among  the  dishes  but  is  hallowed  to  me 
through  his  imagination,  and  the  Cook  goes  forth  a  Man- 
ciple. 

Antiquity!  thou  wondrous  charm,  what  art  thou? 
tliat,  being  nothing,  art  everything!  When  thou  wert^ 
thou  wert  not  antiquity — then  thou  wert  nothing,  but 
hadst  a  remoter  antiquity^  as  thou  calledst  it,  to  look 
back  to  with  blind  veneration;  thou  thyself  being  to 
thyself  flat,  jejune,  modern!  "What  mystery  lurks  in 
this  retroversion?  or  what  half  Januses^  are  we,  that 
cannot  look  forward  with  the  same  idolatry  with  which 
we  forever  revert!  The  mighty  future  is  as  nothing, 
being  everything !  the  past  is  everything,  being  nothing ! 

1  Januses  of  one  face. — Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


OXFORD  IN  THE  VACATION.  19 

What  were  thy  darh  ages  ?  Surely  the  sun  rose  as 
brightly  then  as  now,  and  man  got  him  to  his  work  in 
the  morning.  Why  is  it  we  can  never  hear  mention  of 
them  without  an  accompanying  feeling,  as  though  a  pal- 
pable obscure  had  dimmed  the  face  of  things,  and  that 
our  ancestors  wandered  to  and  fro  groping ! 

Above  all  thy  rarities,  old  Oxenford,  what  do  most 
arride  and  solace  me,  are  thy  repositories  of  mouldering 
learning,  thy  shelves — 

What  a  place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library !  It  seems  as 
though  all  the  souls  of  all  the  writers,  that  have  be- 
queathed their  labors  to  these  Bodleians,  were  reposing 
here,  as  in  some  dormitory,  or  middle  state.  I  do  not 
want  to  handle,  to  profane  the  leaves,  their  winding- 
sheets.  I  conld  as  soon  dislodge  a  shade.  I  seem  to 
inhale  learning,  walking  amid  their  foliage;  and  the 
odor  of  their  old  moth-scented  coverings  is  fragrant  as 
the  first  bloom  of  those  sciential  apples  which  grew 
amid  the  happy  orchard. 

Still  less  have  I  curiosity  to  disturb  the  elder  re- 
pose of  MSS.  Those  varice  lectiones,  so  tempting  to  the 
more  erudite  palates,  do  but  disturb  and  unsettle  my 
faith.  I  am  no  Herculanean  raker.  The  credit  of  the 
three  witnesses  might  have  slept  unimpeached  for  me. 
I  leave  these  curiosities  to  Porson,  and  to  G.  D. — whom, 
by-the-way,  I  found  busy  as  a  moth  over  some  rotten 
archive,  rummaged  out  of  some  seldom-explored  press, 
in  a  nook  at  Oriel.  With  long  poring,  he  is  grown 
almost  into  a  book.  He  stood  as  passive  as  one  by  the 
side  of  the  old  shelves.  I  longed  to  new-coat  him  in 
russia,  and  assign  him  his  place.  He  might  have  mus- 
tered for  a  tall  Scapula. 

D.  is  assiduous  in  his  visits  to  these  seats  of  learning. 


20  I'HE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

No  inconsiderate  portion  of  his  moderate  fortune,  I  ap- 
prehend, is  consumed  in  journeys  between  them  and 
Clifford's  Inn — where,  like  a  dove  on  the  asp's  nest,  he 
has  long  taken  up  his  unconscious  abode,  amid  an  incon- 
gruous assembly  of  attorneys,  attorneys'  clerks,  appari- 
tors, promoters,  vermin  of  the  law,  among  whom  he  sits 
"in  calm  and  sinless  peace."  The  fangs  of  the  law 
pierce  him  not;  the  winds  of  litigation  blow  over  his 
humble  chambers;  the  hard  sheriff's  officer  moves  his 
hat  as  he  passes ;  legal  nor  illegal  discourtesy  touches 
him ;  none  thinks  of  offering  violence  or  injustice  to  him 
— you  would  as  soon  "  strike  an  abstract  idea." 

D.  has  been  engaged,  he  tells  me,  through  a  course  of 
laborious  years,  in  an  investigation  into  all  curious  mat- 
ter connected  with  the  two  Universities ;  and  has  lately 

lit  upon  a  MS.  collection  of  charters,  relative  to  0 , 

by  which  he  hopes  to  settle  some  disputed  points — par- 
ticularly that  long  controversy  between  them  as  to 
priority  of  foundation.  The  ardor  with  which  he  en- 
gages in  these  liberal  pursuits,  I  am  afraid,  has  not  met 
with  all  the  encouragement  it  deserved,  either  here  or 

at  C .    Your  caputs  and  heads  of  colleges  care  less 

than  anybody  else  about  these  questions.  Contented  to 
suck  the  milky  fountains  of  their  Alma  Maters,  without 
inquiring  into  the  venerable  gentlewomen's  years,  they 
rather  hold  such  curiosities  to  be  impertinent — unrever- 
end.  They  have  their  good  glebe-lands  in  manUy  and 
care  not  much  to  rake  into  the  titk-deeds.  I  gather  at 
least  so  much  from  other  sources,  for  D.  is  not  a  man  to 
complain. 

D.  started  like  un  unbroke  heifer  when  1  interrupted 
him.  A  priori  it  was  not  very  probable  that  we  should 
have  met  in  Oriel.    But  D.  would  have  done  the  same 


OXFORD   IN   THE   VACATION.  21 

had  I  accosted  him  on  the  sudden  in  his  own  walks  in 
Clifford's  Inn,  or  in  the  Temple.  In  addition  to  a  pro- 
voking short-sightedness  (the  effect  of  late  studies  and 
watchings  at  the  midnight  oil),  D.  is  the  most  absent  of 
men.  He  made  a  call  the  other  morning  at  our  friend 
M.'s  in  Bedford  Square ;  and,  finding  nobody  at  home, 
was  ushered  into  the  hall,  where,  asking  for  pen  and  ink, 
with  great  exactitude  of  purpose  he  enters  me  his  name 
in  the  book — which  ordinarily  lies  about  in  such  places, 
to  record  the  failures  of  the  untimely  or  unfortunate 
visitor — and  takes  his  leave  with  many  ceremonies  and 
professions  of  regret.  Some  two  or  three  hours  after, 
his  walking  destinies  returned  him  into  the  same  neigh- 
borhood again,  and  again  the  quiet  image  of  the  fireside 
circle  at  M.'s — Mrs.  M.  presiding  at  it  like  a  Queen  Lar, 
with  pretty  A.  S.  at  her  side — striking  irresistibly  on 
his  fancy,  he  makes  another  call  (forgetting  that  they 
were  "  certainly  not  to  return  from  the  country  before 
that  day  week "),  and,  disappointed  a  second  time,  in- 
quires for  pen  and  paper  as  before ;  again  the  book  is 
brought,  and  in  the  line  just  above  that  in  which  he  is 
about  to  print  his  second  name  (his  rescript) — his  first 
name  (scarce  dry)  looks  out  upon  him  like  another  Sosia, 
or  as  if  a  man  should  suddenly  encounter  his  own  dupli- 
cate I  The  effect^  may  be  conceived.  D.  made  many  a 
good  resolution  against  any  such  lapses  in  the  future.  I 
hope  he  will  not  keep  them  too  rigorously. 

For  with  Gr.  D.,  to  be  absent  from  the  body  is  some- 
times (not  to  speak  it  profanely)  to  be  present  with  the 
Lord.  At  the  very  time  when,  personally  encountering 
thee,  he  passes  on  with  no  recognition — or,  being 
stopped,  starts  like  a  thing  surprised — at  that  moment, 
reader,  he  is  on  Mount  Tabor ;   or,  Parnassus ;  or,  co- 


22  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

sphered  with  Plato  ;  or,  with  Harrington,  framing  *'  im- 
mortal Commonwealths,"  devising  some  plan  of  ameli- 
oration to  thy  country  or  thy  species — peradventure 
meditating  some  individual  kindness  or  courtesy,  to  be 
done  to  thee  thyself^  the  returning  consciousness  of 
which  made  him  to  start  so  guiltily  at  thy  obtruded  per- 
sonal presence. 

D.  is  delightful  anywhere,  but  he  is  at  the  best  in 
such  places  as  these.  He  cares  not  much  for  Bath.  He 
is  out  of  his  element  at  Buxton,  at  Scarborough,  or  Har- 
rowgate.  The  Cam  and  the  Isis  are  to  him  "better  than 
all  the  waters  of  Damascus."  On  the  Muses'  hill  he  is 
happy,  and  good,  as  one  of  the  Shepherds  on  the  Delec- 
table Mountains ;  and  when  he  goes  about  with  you  to 
show  you  the  halls  and  colleges,  you  think  you  liave 
with  you  the  Interpreter  of  the  House  Beautiful. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL  FIVE-AND-THIRTY 
YEARS  AGO. 

In  Mr.  Lamb's  "Works,"  published  a  year  or  two 
ago,  I  find  a  magnificent  eulogy  on  my  old  school,*  such 
as  it  was,  or  now  appears  to  him  to  have  been,  between 
the  years  1782  and  1789.  It  happens,  very  oddly,  that 
my  own  standing  at  Christ's  was  nearly  corresponding 
with  his ;  and,  with  all  gratitude  to  him  for  his  enthusi- 
asm for  the  cloisters,  I  think  he  has  contrived  to  bring 
together  whatever  can  be  said  in  praise  of  them,  drop- 
ping all  the  other  side  of  the  argument  most  ingeniously. 
*  "  RecolloctionB  of  Christ's  Hospital." 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  23 

I  remember  L.  at  school ;  and  can  well  recollect  that 
he  had  some  peculiar  advantages,  which  I  and  others  of 
his  schoolfellows  had  not.  His  friends  lived  in  town, 
and  were  near  at  hand ;  and  he  had  the  privilege  of  go- 
ing to  see  them,  almost  as  often  as  he  wished,  through 
some  invidious  distinction,  which  was  denied  to  us.  The 
present  worthy  sub-treasurer  to  the  Inner  Temple  can 
explain  how  that  happened.  He  had  his  tea  and  hot 
rolls  in  a  morning,  while  we  were  battening  upon  our 
quarter-of-a-penny  loaf — our  crug — moistened  with  at- 
tenuated small  beer,  in  wooden  piggings,  smacking  of 
the  pitched  leathern  jack  it  was  poured  from.  Our  Mon- 
day's milk-porridge,  blue  and  tasteless,  and  the  pease- 
soup  of  Saturday,  coarse  and  choking,  were  enriched  for 
him  with  a  slice  of  "extraordinary. bread  and  butter," 
from  the  hot-loaf  of  the  Temple.  The  Wednesday's  mess 
of  millet,  somewhat  less  repugnant — we  had  three  ban- 
yan to  four  meat  days  in  the  week — was  endeared  to  his 
palate  with  a  lump  of  double-refined,  and  a  smack  of 
ginger  (to  make  it  go  down  the  more  glibly)  or  the  fra- 
grant cinnamon.  In  lieu  of  our  Jialf-picTcled  Sundays, 
or  quite  fresh  boiled  beef  on  Thursdays  (strong  as  caro 
equina)^  with  detestable  marigolds  floating  in  the  pail  to 
poison  the  broth — our  scanty  mutton  scrags  on  Fridays 
— and  rather  more  savory,  but  grudging,  portions  of  the 
same  flesh,  rotten-roasted  or  rare,  on  the  Tuesdays  (the 
only  dish  which  excited  our  appetites  and  disappointed 
our  stomachs  in  almost  equal  proportion) — he  had  his  hot 
plate  of  roast- veal,  or  the  more  tempting  griskin  (exotics 
unknown  to  our  palates),  cooked  in  the  paternal  kitchen  (a 
great  thing),  and  brought  him  daily  by  his  maid  or  aunt ! 
I  remember  the  good  old  relative  (in  whom  love  forbade 
pride)  squatted  down  upon  some  odd  stone  in  a  by-nook 


24  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

of  the  cloisters,  disclosing  the  viands  (of  higher  regale 
than  those  cates  which  the  ravens  ministered  to  the  Tish- 
hite) ;  and  the  contending  passions  of  L.  at  the  unfold- 
ing. There  was  love  for  the  bringer;  shame  for  the 
thing  brought,  and  the  manner  of  its  bringing ;  sympa- 
thy for  those  who  were  too  many  to  share  in  it ;  and,  at 
top  of  all,  hunger  (eldest,  strongest  of  the  passions!) 
predominant,  breaking  down  the  stony  fences  of  shame, 
and  awkwardness,  and  a  troubling  over-consciousness. 

I  was  a  poor,  friendless  boy.  My  parents,  and  those 
who  should  care  for  me,  were  far  away.  Those  few 
acquaintances  of  theirs,  which  they  could  reckon  upon 
being  kind  to  me  in  the  great  city,  after  a  little  forced 
notice,  which  they  had  the  grace  to  take  of  me  on  my 
first  arrival  in  town,  soon  grew  tired  of  my  holiday  visits. 
They  seemed  to  them  to  recur  too  often,  though  I  thought 
them  few  enough ;  and,  one  after  another,  they  all  failed 
me,  and  I  felt  myself  alone  among  six  hundred  play- 
mates. 

Oh,  the  cruelty  of  separating  a  poor  lad  from  his  early 
homestead  I  The  yearnings  which  I  used  to  have  toward 
it  in  those  unfledged  years !  How,  in  my  dreams,  would 
my  native  town  (far  in  the  west)  come  back,  with  its 
church,  and  trees,  and  faces !  How  I  would  wake  weep- 
ing, and  in  the  anguish  of  my  heart  exclaim  upon  sweet 
Calne  in  Wiltshire  I 

To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,  I  trace  impressions  left 
by  the  recollection  of  those  friendless  holidays.  The 
long,  warm  days  of  summer  never  return  but  they  bring 
with  them  a  gloom  from  the  haunting  memory  of  those 
whole-day  leaves^  when,  by  some  strange  arrangement, 
we  were  turned  out  for  the  live-long  day  upon  our  own 
hands,  whether  we  had  friends  to  go  to,  or  none.    I 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  25 

remember  those  bathing  excursions  to  the  New-River, 
which  L.  recalls  with  such  relish,  better,  I  think,  than 
he  can — for  he  was  a  home-seeking  lad,  and  did  not 
much  care  for  such  water  pastimes : — How  merrily  wo 
would  sally  forth  into  the  fields ;  and  strip  under  the  first 
warmth  of  the  sun ;  and  wanton  like  young  dace  in  the 
streams;  getting  us  appetites  for  noon,  which  those  of 
us  that  were  penniless  (our  scanty  morning  crust  long 
since  exhausted)  had  not  the  means  of  allaying — while 
the  cattle,  and  the  birds,  and  the  fishes,  were  at  feed 
about  us  and  we  had  nothing  to  satisfy  our  cravings — 
the  very  beauty  of  the  day,  and  the  exercise  of  the  pas- 
time, and  the  sense  of  liberty,  setting  a  keener  edge  upon 
them ! — How,  faint  and  languid,  finally,  we  would  return, 
toward  nightfall,  to  our  desired  morsel,  half-rejoicing, 
half-reluctant,  that  the  hours  of  our  uneasy  liberty  had 
expired  I 

It  was  worse,  in  the  days  of  winter,  to  go  prowling 
about  the  streets  objectless — shivering  at  cold  windows 
of  print-shops  to  extract  a  little  amusement ;  or  haply, 
as  a  last  resort  in  hopes  of  a  little  novelty,  to  pay  a  fifty- 
times -repeated  visit  (where  our  individual  faces  should 
be  as  well  known  to  the  warden  as  those  of  his  own 
charges)  to  the  lions  in  the  Tower — to  whose  levee,  by 
courtesy,  immemorial,  we  had  a  prescriptive  title  to  ad- 
mission. 

L.'s  governor  (so  we  called  the  patron  who  presented 
us  to  the^f  oundation)  lived  in  a  manner  under  his  pater- 
nal roof.  Any  complaint  which  he  had  to  make  was 
sure  of  being  attended  to.  This  was  understood  at 
Christ's,  and  was  an  effectual  screen  to  him  against  the 
severity  of  masters,  or  worse  tyranny  of  the  monitors. 
The  oppressions  of  these  young  brutes  are  heart-sickening 


26  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

to  call  to  recollection.  I  have  been  called  out  of  my  bed, 
and  waked  for  the  purpose^  in  the  coldest  winter  nights 
— and  this  not  once,  but  night  after  night — in  my  shirt, 
to  receive  the  discipline  of  a  leathern  thong,  with  eleven 
other  sufferers,  because  it  pleased  my  callow  overseer, 
when  there  has  been  any  talking  heard  after  we  were 
gone  to  bed,  to  make  the  six  last  beds  in  the  dormitory, 
where  the  youngest  children  of  us  slept;,  answerable  for 
an  offense  they  neither  dared  to  commit,  nor  had  the 
power  to  hinder.  The  same  execrable  tyranny  drove 
the  younger  part  of  us  from  the  fires,  when  our  feet 
were  perishing  with  snow  ;  and,  under  the  cruelest  pen- 
alties, forbade  the  indulgence  of  a  drink  of  water,  when 
we  lay  in  sleepless  summer  nights,  fevered  with  the  sea- 
son and  the  day's  sports. 

There  was  one  H ,  who,  I  learned  in  after-days, 

was  seen  expiating  some  maturer  offense  in  the  hulks. 
(Do  I  flatter  myself  in  fancying  that  this  might  be  the 
planter  of  that  name,  who  suffered — at  Nevis,  I  think,  or 
St.  Kitts — some  few  years  since  ?  My  friend  Tobin  was 
the  benevolent  instrument  of  bringing  him  to  the  gal- 
lows.) This  petty  Nero  actually  branded  a  boy  who 
had  offended  him,  with  a  red-hot  iron ;  and  nearly  starved 
forty  of  U8  with  exacting  contributions,  to  the  one-half 
of  our  bread,  to  pamper  a  young  ass,  which,  incredible  as 
it  may  seem,  with  the  connivance  of  the  nurse's  daughter 
(a  young  flame  of  his),  he  had  contrived  to  smuggle  in, 
and  keep  upon  the  leads  of  the  ward^  as  they  called  our 
dormitories.  This  game  went  on  for  better  than  a  week, 
till  the  foolish  beast,  not  able  to  fare  well  but  he  must 
cry  roast-meat — happier  than  Caligula's  minion,  could  he 
have  kept  his  own  counsel — but,  foolisher,  alas  I  than 
any  of  his  species  in  the  fables — waxing  fat,  and  kicking. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  27 

in  the  fullness  of  bread,  one  unlucky  minute  would  needs 
proclaim  his  good  fortune  to  the  world  below ;  and,  lay- 
ing out  his  simple  throat,  blew  such  a  ram's-horn  blast, 
as  (toppling  down  the  walls  of  his  own  Jericho)  set  con- 
cealment any  longer  at  defiance.  The  client  was  dis- 
missed, with  certain  attentions,  to  Smithfield  ;  but  I  nev- 
er understood  that  the  patron  underwent  any  censure 
on  the  occasion.  This  was  in  the  stewardship  of  L.'s  ad- 
mired Perry. 

Under  the  same  facile  administration  can  L.  have 
forgotten  the  cool  impunity  with  which  the  nurses  used 
to  carry  away  openly,  in  open  platters,  for  their  own  ta- 
bles, one  out  of  two  of  every  hot  joint,  which  the  care- 
ful matron  had  been  seeing  scrupulously  weighed  out  for 
our  dinners  ?  These  things  were  daily  practised  in  that 
magnificent  apartment,  which  L.  (grown  connoisseur 
since,  we  presume)  praises  so  highly  for  the  grand  paint- 
ings "  by  Yerrio  and  others,"  with  which  it  is  "  hung 
round  and  adorned."  But  the  sight  of  sleek,  well-fed, 
blue- coat  boys  in  the  pictures  was,  at  that  time,  I  be- 
lieve, little  consolatory  to  him,  or  us,  the  living  ones, 
who  saw  the  better  part  of  our  provisions  carried  away 
before  our  faces  by  harpies  ;  and  ourselves  reduced  (with 
the  Trojan  in  the  hall  of  Dido) 

"To  feed  our  mind  with  idle  portraiture." 

L.  has  recorded  the  repugnance  of  the  school  to  gags^ 
or  the  fat  of  fresh  beef  boiled ;  and  sets  it  down  to  some 
superstition.  But  these  unctuous  morsels  are  never 
grateful  to  young  palates  (children  are  universally  fat- 
haters),  and  in  strong,  coarse,  boiled  meats,  unsaUed,  are 
detestable.    A  gag-eater  in  our  time  was  equivalent  to  a 


28  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

goule^  and  held  in  equal  detestation — suffered  under  the 

imputation — 

— "  'T  was  said 
He  ate  strange  flesh." 

He  was  observed,  after  dinner,  carefully  to  gather  up 
the  remnants  left  at  his  table  (not  many,  nor  very  choice 
fragments,  you  may  credit  me)— and,  in  an  especial  manner, 
these  disreputable  morsels,  which  he  would  convey  away, 
and  secretly  stow  in  the  settle  that  stood  at  his  bedside. 
None  saw  when  he  ate  them.  It  was  rumored  that  he 
privately  devoured  them  in  the  night.  He  was  watched, 
but  no  traces  of  such  midnight  practices  were  discover- 
able. Some  reported  that,  on  leave-days,  he  had  been 
seen  to  carry  out  of  the  bounds  a  large  blue  check  hand- 
kerchief full  of  something.  This,  then,  must  be  the  ac- 
cursed thing.  Conjecture  next  was  at  work  to  imagine 
how  he  could  dispose  of  it.  Some  said  he  sold  it  to  the 
beggars.  This  belief  generally  prevailed.  He  went  about 
moping.  None  spake  to  him.  No  one  would  play  with 
him.  He  was  excommunicated;  put  out  of  the  pale  of 
the  school.  He  was  too  powerful  a  boy  to  be  beaten, 
but  he  underwent  every  mode  of  that  negative  punish- 
ment which  is  more  grievous  than  many  stripes.  Still 
he  persevered.  At  length  he  was  observed  by  two  of 
his  school-fellows,  who  were  determined  to  get  at  the 
secret,  and  had  traced  him  one  leave-day  for  that  pur- 
pose, to  enter  a  large,  worn-out  building,  such  as  there 
exist  specimens  of  in  Chancery  Lane,  which  are  let  out  to 
various  scales  of  pauperism,  with  open  door  and  a  com- 
mon staircase.  After  him  they  silently  slunk  in,  and 
followed  by  stealth  up  four  flights,  and  saw  him  tap  at 
a  poor  wicket,  which  was  opened  by  an  aged  woman, 
meanly  clad.    Suspicion  was  now  r  pened  into  certainty. 


CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL.  29 

The  informers  had  secured  their  victim.  Tliey  had  him 
ia  their  toils.  Accusation  was  formally  preferred,  and 
retribution  most  signal  was  looked  for.  Mr.  Hathaway^ 
the  then  steward  (for  this  happened  a  little  after  my 
time),  with  that  patient  sagacity  which  tempered  all  his 
conduct,  determined  to  investigate  the  matter  before  he 
proceeded  to  sentence.  The  result  was  that  the  supposed 
mendicants,  the  receivers  or  purchasers  of  the  mysteri- 
ous scraps,  turned  out  to  be  the  parents  of ,  an  hon- 
est couple  come  to  decay — whom  this  seasonable  supply 
had,  in  all  probability,  saved  from  mendicancy ;  and  this 
young  stork,  at  the  expense  of  his  own  good  name,  had 
all  this  while  been  only  feeding  the  old  birds! — The  gov- 
ernors on  this  occasion,  much  to  their  honor,  voted  a 

present  relief  to  the  family  of ,  and  presented  him 

with  a  silver  medal.  The  lesson  which  the  steward  read 
upon  EASH  JUDGMENT,  ou  the  occasiou  of  publicly  deliver- 
ing the  medal  to ,  I  believe  would  not  be  lost  upon 

his  auditory. — I  had  left  school  then,  but  I  well  remem- 
ber   .     He  was  a  tall,  shambling  youth,  with  a  cast 

in  his  eye,  not  at  all  calculated  to  conciliate  hostile  preju- 
dices. I  have  since  seen  him  carrying  a  baker's  basket. 
I  think  I  heard  he  did  not  do  quite  so  well  by  himself,  as 
ho  had  done  by  the  old  folks. 

I  was  an  hypochondriac  lad ;  and  the  sight  of  a  boy 
in  fetters,  upon  the  day  of  my  first  putting  on  the  blue 
clothes,  was  not  exactly  fitted  to  assuage  the  natural  ter- 
rors of  initiation.  I  was  of  tender  years,  barely  turned 
of  seven ;  and  had  only  read  of  such  things  in  book,  or 
seen  them  but  in  dreams.  I  was  told  he  had  run  away. 
This  was  the  punishment  for  the  first  offense.  As  a  novice 
I  was  soon  after  taken  to  see  the  dungeons.  These  were 
little,  square  Bedlam  cells,  where  a  boy  could  just  lie  at 


30  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

his  length  upon  straw,  and  a  blanket — a  mattress,  I  think, 
was  afterward  substituted — with  a  peep  of  light,  let  in 
askance,  from  a  prison  orifice  at  top,  barely  enough  to 
read  by.  Here  the  poor  boy  was  locked  iu  by  himself 
all  day,  without  sight  of  any  but  the  porter  who  brought 
him  his  bread  and  water — who  might  not  speak  to  Mm  ; 
— or  of  the  beadle,  who  came  twice  a  week  to  call  him 
out  to  receive  his  periodical  chastisement,  which  was  al- 
most welcome,  because  it  separated  him  for  a  brief  inter- 
val from  solitude:  and  here  he  was  shut  up  by  himselt 
of  nights  out  of  the  reach  of  any  sound,  to  suffer  what- 
ever horrors  the  weak  nerves,  and  superstition  incident 
to  his  time  of  life,  might  subject  him  to.*  This  was  the 
penalty  for  the  second  offense.  Wouldst  thou  like, 
reader,  to  see  what  became  of  him  in  the  next  degree? 

The  culprit,  who  had  been  a  third  time  an  offender, 
and  whose  expulsion  was  at  this  time  deemed  irreversi- 
ble, was  brought  forth,  as  at  some  solemn  auto-da-fe^  ar- 
rayed in  uncouth  and  most  appalling  attire — all  trace  of 
his  late  *'  watchet  weeds  "  carefully  effaced,  he  was  ex- 
posed in  a  jacket  resembling  those  which  London  lamp- 
lighters formerly  delighted  in,  with  a  cap  of  the  same. 
The  effect  of  this  divestiture  was  such  as  the  ingenious 
devisers  of  it  could  have  anticipated.  With  his  pale  and 
frighted  features,  it  was  as  if  some  of  those  disfigure- 
ments in  Dante  had  seized  upon  him.  In  this  disguise- 
ment  he  was  brought  into  the  hall  (Z.'«  fa/oo7'ite  state- 

*  One  or  two  instances  of  lunacy,  or  attempted  suicide,  accord- 
ingly, at  length  convinced  the  governors  of  the  impolicy  of  this 
part  of  the  sentence,  and  the  midnight  torture  to  the  spirits  was 
dispensed  with. — This  fancy  of  dungeons  for  children  was  a  sprout 
of  Howard's  brain;  for  which  (saving  the  reverence  due  to  Holy 
Paul),  methinks,  I  could  v/illingly  spit  upon  his  statue. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  31 

room),  where  awaited  him  the  whole  number  of  his 
school-fellows,  whose  joint  lessons  and  sports  he  was 
thenceforth  to  share  no  more ;  the  awful  presence  of  the 
steward,  to  he  seen  for  the  last  time ;  of  the  executioner 
beadle,  clad  in  his  state-robe  for  the  occasion;  and  of 
two  faces  more,  of  direr  import,  because  never  but  in 
these  extremities  visible.  These  were  governors :  two 
of  whom  by  choice,  or  charter,  were  always  accustomed 
to  officiate  at  these  Ultima  SuppUcia;  not  to  mitigate 
(so  at  least  we  uuder stood  it),  but  to  enforce  the  utter- 
most stripe.  Old  Bamber  Gascoigne,  and  Peter  Aubert, 
I  remember,  were  colleagues  on  one  occasion,  when  the 
beadle  turning  rather  pale,  a  glass  of  brandy  was  ordered 
to  prepare  him  for  the  mysteries.  The  scourging  was, 
after  the  old  Roman  fashion,  long  and  stately.  The  lictor 
accompanied  the  criminal  quite  round  the  hall.  "We  were 
generally  too  faint  with  attending  to  the  previous  disgust- 
ing circumstances,  to  make  accurate  report  with  our  eyes 
of  the  degree  of  corporal  suffering  inflicted.  Report,  of 
course,  gave  out  the  back  knotty  and  livid.  After  scourg- 
ing, he  was  made  over,  in  his  San  Benito,  to  his  friends, 
if  he  had  any  (but  commonly  such  poor  runagates  were 
friendless),  or  to  his  parish  officer,  who,  to  enhance  the 
effect  of  the  scene,  had  his  station  allotted  to  him  on  the 
outside  of  the  hall-gate. 

These  solemn  pageantries  were  not  played  off  so  often 
as  to  spoil  the  general  mirth  of  the  community.  We  had 
plenty  of  exercise  and  recreation  after  school-hours ;  and, 
for  myself,  I  must  confess,  that  I  was  never  happier  than 
in  them.  The  Upper  and  the  Lower  Grammar-Schools 
were  held  in  the  same  room ;  and  an  imaginary  line  only 
divided  their  bounds.  Their  character  was  as  different 
as  that  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Pyre- 


32  THE 'ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

nees.  The  Rev.  James  Boyer  was  the  Upper  Master ;  but 
the  Rev.  Matthew  Field  presided  over  that  portion  of  the 
apartment  of  which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  a  mem- 
ber. We  lived  a  life  as  careless  as  birds.  We  talked  and 
did  just  what  we  pleased,  and  nobody  molested  us.  We 
carried  an  accidence,  or  a  grammar,  for  form ;  but,  for 
any  trouble  it  gave  us,  we  might  take  two  years  in  get- 
ting through  the  verbs  deponent,  and  another  two  in  for- 
geting  all  that  we  had  learned  about  them.  There  was 
now  and  then  the  formality  of  saying  a  lesson,  but  if  you 
had  not  learned  it,  a  brush  across  the  shoulders  (just 
enough  to  disturb  a  fly)  was  the  sole  remonstrance. 
Field  never  used  the  rod ;  and  in  truth  he  wielded  the 
cane  with  no  great  good-will — holding  it  '*  like  a  dancer." 
It  looked  in  his  hands  rather  like  an  emblem  than  an 
instrument  of  authority;  and  an  emblem,  too,  he  was 
ashamed  of.  He  was  a  good,  easy  man,  that  did  not  care 
to  ruffle  his  own  peace,  nor  perhaps  set  any  great  con- 
sideration upon  the  value  of  juvenile  time.  He  came 
among  us,  now  and  then,  but  often  staid  away  whole 
days  from  us ;  and  when  he  came  it  made  no  difference 
to  us — he  had  his  private  room  to  retire  to,  the  short 
time  he  staid,  to  be  out  of  the  sound  of  our  noise.  Our 
mirth  and  uproar  went  on.  We  had  classics  of  our  own, 
without  being  beholden  to  *' insolent  Greece  or  haughty 
Rome,"  that  passed  current  among  us — Peter  Wilkins — 
tlie  Adventures  of  the  Hon.  Captain  Robert  Boyle — the 
Fortunate  Blue-Coat  Boy — and  the  like.  Or  we  culti- 
vated a  turn  for  mechanic  and  scientific  operations ;  mak- 
ing little  sun-dials  of  paper ;  or  weaving  those  ingenious 
parentheses  called  cat-cradles;  or  making  dry  peas  to 
dance  upon  the  end  of  a  tin  pipe;  or  studying  the  art 
military  over  that  laudable  game  "  French  and  English," 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  33 

and  a  hundred  other  such  devices  to  pass  away  the  time 
— mixing  the  useful  with  the  agreeable — as  would  have 
made  the  souls  of  Rousseau  and  John  Locke  chuckle  to 
have  seen  us. 

Matthew  Field  belonged  to  that  class  of  modest  di- 
vines who  affect  to  mix  in  equal  proportion  the  gentle- 
man^ the  scholar^  and  the  Christian ;  but,  I  know  not 
how,  the  first  ingredient  is  generally  found  to  be  the 
predominating  dose  in  the  composition.  He  was  en- 
gaged in  gay  parties,  or  with  his  courtly  bow  at  some 
episcopal  levee,  when  he  should  have  been  attending 
upon  us.  He  had  for  many  years  the  classical  charge 
of  a  hundred  children,  during  the  four  or  five  first  years 
of  their  education;  and  his  very  highest  form  seldom 
proceeded  further  than  two  or  three  of  the  introductory 
fables  of  Phaedrus.  How  things  were  suffered  to  go  on 
thus,  I  cannot  guess.  Boyer,  who  was  the  proper  per- 
son to  have  remedied  these  abuses,  always  affected,  per- 
haps felt,  a  delicacy  in  interfering  in  a  province  not 
strictly  his  own.  I  have  not  been  without  my  suspicions 
that  he  was  not  altogether  displeased  at  the  contrast  we 
presented  to  his  end  of  the  school.  We  were  a  sort  of 
Helots  to  his  young  Spartans.  He  would  sometimes, 
with  ironic  deference,  send  to  borrow  a  rod  of  the  Under 
Master,  and  then,  with  Sardonic  grin,  observe  to  one  of 
his  upper  boys  *'how  neat  and  fresh  the  twigs  looked." 
While  his  pale  students  were  battering  their  brains  over 
Xenophon  and  Plato,  with  a  silence  as  deep  as  that  en- 
joined by  the  Samite,  we  were  enjoying  ourselves  at  our 
ease  in  our  little  Goshen.  We  saw  a  little  into  the  se- 
crets of  his  discipline,  and  the  prospect  did  but  the  more 
reconcile  us  to  our  lot.  His  thunders  rolled  innocuous 
for  us;  his  storms  came  near,  but  never  touched  us; 

3 


34  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

contrary  to  Gideon's  miracle,  while  all  around  were 
drenched,  our  fleece  was  dry.*  His  boys  turned  out  the 
better  scholars;  we,  I  suspect,  have  the  advantage  in 
temper.  His  pupils  cannot  speak  of  him  without  some- 
thing of  terror  allaying  their  gratitude;  the  remem- 
brance of  Field  comes  back  with  all  the  soothing  images 
of  indolence,  and  summer  slumbers,  and  work  like  play, 
and  innocent  idleness,  and  Elysian  exemptions,  and  life 
itself  a  "playing  holiday." 

Though  sufficiently  removed  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
Boyer,  we  were  near  enough  (as  I  have  said)  to  under- 
stand a  little  of  his  system.  We  occasionally  heard 
sounds  of  the  Ululantes,  and  caught  glances  of  Tartarus. 
B.  was  a  rabid  pedant.  His  English  style  was  cramped 
to  barbarism.  His  Easter  anthems  (for  his  duty  obliged 
him  to  those  periodical  flights)  were  grating  as  scrannel 
pipes.f  He  would  laugh,  ay,  and  heartily,  but  then  it 
must  be  at  Flaccus's  quibble  about  Eex — or  at  the  tristis 
severitas  in  vultu,  or  inspicere  in  patinas,  of  Terence — 
thin  jests,  which  at  their  first  broaching  could  hardly 
have  had  vis  enough  to  move  a  Eoman  muscle.  He  had 
two  wigs,  both  pedantic,  but  of  different  omen.  The 
one  serene,  smiling,  fresh-powdered,  betokening  a  mild 
day.     The  other,  an  old,  discolored,  unkempt,  angry 

*  Cowley. 

t  In  this  and  everything  B.  was  the  antipodes  of  his  coadju- 
tor. While  the  former  was  digging  his  brains  for  crude  anthems, 
worth  a  pig-nut,  F.  would  be  recreating  his  gentlemanly  fancy 
in  the  more  flowery  walks  of  the  Muses.  A  little  dramatic  effu- 
sion of  his,  under  the  name  of  Vertumnus  and  Pomona,  is  not 
yet  forgotten  by  the  chroniclers  of  that  sort  of  literature.  It 
was  accepted  by  Garrick,  but  the  town  did  not  give  it  their  sanc- 
tion. B.  used  to  say  of  it,  in  a  way  of  half  compliment,  half 
irony,  that  it  was  too  classical  for  representation. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL.  35 

caxon,  denoting  frequent  and  bloody  execution.  Woe 
to  the  school  when  he  made  his  morning  appearance  in 
his  passy^  or  passionate  wig!  No  comet  expounded 
surer.  J.  B.  had  a  heavy  hand.  I  have  known  him 
double  his  knotty  fist  at  a  poor,  trembling  child  (the  ma- 
ternal milk  hardly  dry  upon  its  lips),  with  a  "  Sirrah,  do 
you  presume  to  set  your  wits  at  me  ? "  Nothing  was 
more  common  than  to  see  him  make  a  headlong  entry 
into  the  school-room,  from  his  inner  recess  or  library, 
and,  with  turbulent  eye,  singling  out  a  lad,  roar  out, 
"  Od's  my  life,  sirrah"  (his  favorite  adjuration),  "  I  have 
a  great  mind  to  whip  you ;  "  then,  with  as  sudden  a  re- 
tracting impulse,  fling  back  into  his  lair,  and,  after  a 
cooling  lapse  of  some  minutes  (during  which  all  but  the 
culprit  had  totally  forgotten  the  context)  drive  headlong 
out  again,  piecing  out  his  imperfect  sense,  as  if  it  had 
been  some  DeviPs  Litany,  with  the  expletory  yell — *'  and 
I  WILL,  tooy  In  his  gentler  moods,  when  the  raMdtos 
furor  was  assuaged,  he  had  resort  to  an  ingenious 
method,  peculiar,  for  what  I  have  heard,  to  himself,  of 
whipping  the  boy,  and  reading  the  Debates,  at  the  same 
time ;  a  paragraph,  and  a  lash  between ;  which  in  those 
times,  when  parliamentary  oratory  was  most  at  a  height 
and  flourishing  in  these  realms,  was  not  calculated  to 
impress  the  patient  with  a  veneration  for  the  diffuser 
graces  of  rhetoric. 

Once,  and  but  once,  the  uplifted  rod  was  known  to 
fall  ineffectual  from  his  hand — when  droll,  squinting  W., 
having  been  caught  putting  the  inside  of  the  master's 
desk  to  a  use  for  which  the  architect  had  clearly  not 
designed  it,  to  justify  himself,  with  great  simplicity 
averred  that  he  did  not  hnow  that  the  thing  had  teen 
forewa/med.     This  exquisite  irrecognition  of  any  law 


36  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

antecedent  to  the  oral  or  declaratory^  struck  so  irresisti- 
bly upon  the  fancy  of  all  who  heard  it  (the  pedagogue 
himself  not  excepted)  that  remission  was  unavoidable. 

L.  has  given  credit  to  B.'s  great  merits  as  an  instruc- 
tor. Coleridge,  in  his  literary  life,  has  pronounced  a 
more  intelligible  and  ample  encomium  on  them.  The 
author  of  the  Country  Spectator  doubts  not  to  compare 
him  with  the  ablest  teachers  of  antiquity.  Perhaps  we 
cannot  dismiss  him  better  than  with  the  pious  ejacula- 
tion of  0.,  when  he  heard  that  his  old  master  was  on 
his  death-bed :  "  Poor  J.  B. !  may  all  his  faults  be  for- 
given ;  and  may  he  be  wafted  to  bliss  by  little  cherub- 
boys  all  head  and  wings,  with  no  lottoms  to  reproach 
his  sublunary  infirmities." 

Under  him  were  many  good  and  sound  scholars  bred. 
First  Grecian  of  my  time  was  Lancelot  Pepys  Stevens, 
kindest  of  boys  and  men,  since  Co-grammar-master  (and 
inseparable  companion)  with  Dr.  T e.  What  an  edi- 
fying spectacle  did  this  brace  of  friends  present  to  those 
who  remembered  the  anti-socialities  of  their  predeces- 
sors !  You  never  met  the  one  by  chance  in  the  street 
without  a  wonder,  which  was  quickly  dissipated  by  the 
almost  immediate  sub-appearance  of  the  other.  Gener- 
ally arm-in-arm,  these  kindly  coadjutors  lightened  for 
each  other  the  toilsome  duties  of  their  profession,  and 
when,  in  advanced  age,  one  found  it  convenient  to  re- 
tire, the  other  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  it  suited 
him  to  lay  down  the  fasces  also.  Oh,  it  is  pleasant,  as 
it  is  rare,  to  find  the  same  arm  linked  in  yours  at  forty, 
which  at  thirteen  helped  it  to  turn  over  the  Cicero  de 
Amicitid,  or  some  tale  of  Antique  Friendship,  which 
the  young  heart  even  then  was  burning  to  anticipate! 
Co-Grecian  with  S.  was  Th ,  who  has  since  executed 


CHRIST'S   HOSPITAL.  37 

with  ability  various  diplomatic  functions  at  the  Northern 
courts.  Th was  a  tall,  dark,  saturnine  youth,  spar- 
ing of  speech,  with  raven  locks.  Thomas  Fanshaw  Mid- 
dleton  followed  him  (now  Bishop  of  Calcutta),  a  scholar 
and  a  gentleman  in  his  teens.  He  has  the  reputation  of 
an  excellent  critic ;  and  is  author  (besides  the  Country 
Spectator)  of  a  Treatise  on  the  Greek  Article,  against 
Sharpe.  M.  is  said  to  bear  his  mitre  high  in  India, 
where  the  regni  novitas  (I  dare  say)  sufficiently  justifies 
the  bearing.  A  humility  quite  as  primitive  as  that  of 
Jewel  or  Hooker  might  not  be  exactly  fitted  to  impress 
the  minds  of  those  Anglo- Asiatic  diocesans  with  a  rev- 
erence for  home  institutions,  and  the  Church  which  those 
fathers  watered.  The  manners  of  M.  at  school,  though 
firm,  were  mild  and  unassuming.  Kext  to  M.  (if  not 
senior  to  him)  was  Richards,  author  of  the  Aboriginal 
Britons,  the  most  spirited  of  the  Oxford  Prize  Poems ; 

a  pale,  studious  Grecian.     Then  followed  poor  S , 

ill-fated  M !  of  these  the  Muse  is  silent. 

"  Finding  some  of  Edward's  race 
Unhappy,  pass  their  annals  by." 

Come  back  into  memory,  like  as  thou  wert  in  the 
day-spring  of  thy  fancies,  with  hope  like  a  fiery  column 
before  thee — the  dark  pillar  not  yet  turned  —  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge — Logician,  Metaphysician,  Bard! — How 
have  I  seen  the  casual  passer  through  the  Cloisters  stand 
still,  entranced  with  admiration  (while  he  weighed  the  dis- 
proportion between  the  speech  and  the  garb  of  the  young 
Mirandula),  to  hear  thee  unfold,  in  thy  deep  and  sweet 
intonations,  the  mysteries  of  Jamblichus  or  Plotinus  (for 
even  in  those  years  thou  waxedst  not  pale  at  such  philo- 
sophic draughts),  or  reciting  Homer  in  his  Greek,  or 


38  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

Pindar — while  the  walls  of  the  old  Grey  Friars  reechoed 
to  the  accents  of  the  inspired  charity -hoy  ! — Many  were 
the  "  wit-combats  "  (to  dally  awhile  with  the  words  of 

old  Fuller)  between  him  and  0.  Y.  Le  G ,  "  which 

two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon  and  an  English 
man-of-war  ;  Master  Coleridge,  like  the  former,  was 
built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid,  but  slow  in  his  per- 
formances. 0.  V.  L.,  with  the  English  man-of-war, 
lesser  in  bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all 
tides,  tack  about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by 
the  quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention." 

Nor  shalt  thou,  their  compeer,  be  quickly  forgotten, 
Allen,  with  the  cordial  smile,  and  still  more  cordial 
laugh,  with  which  thou  wert  wont  to  make  the  old 
Cloisters  shake,  in  thy  cognition  of  some  poignant  jest 
of  theirs;  or  the  anticipation  of  some  more  material, 
and,  peradventure,  practical  one,  of  thine  own.  Extinct 
are  those  smiles,  with  that  beautiful  countenance,  with 
which  (for  thou  wert  the  Nireua  formosus  of  the  school), 
in  the  days  of  thy  maturer  waggery,  thou  didst  disarm 
the  wrath  of  infuriated  town  damsel,  who,  incensed  by 
provoking  pinch,  turning  tigress-like  round,  suddenly 
converted  by  thy  angel-look,  exchanged  the  half-formed 
terrible  *'  11 — ,"  for  a  gentler  greeting — "  Hess  thy  hand- 
some face  !  " 

Next  follow  two,  who  ought  to  be  now  alive,  and  the 

friends  of  Elia — the  junior  Le  G and  F ,  who, 

impelled,  the  former  by  a  roving  temper,  the  latter  by 
too  quick  a  sense  of  neglect,  ill  capable  of  enduring  the 
slights  poor  Sizars  are  sometimes  subject  to  in  our  seats 
of  learning,  exchanged  their  Alma  Mater  for  the  camp  ; 
perishing,  one  by  climate,  and  one  on  the  plains  of  Sal- 
amanca :  Le  G ,  sanguine,  volatile,  sweet-natured ; 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEN.  39 

F ,  dogged,  faithful,  anticipative  of  insult,  warm- 
hearted, with  something  of  the  old  Roman  height  about 
him. 

Fine,  frank-hearted  Fr ,  the  present  master  of 

Hertford,  with  Marmaduke  T ,  mildest  of  Mission- 
aries— and  both  my  good  friends  still — close  the  cata- 
logue of  Grecians  in  my  time.     * 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEK 

The  human  species,  according  to  the  best  theory  I 
can  form  of  it,  is  composed  of  two  distinct  races,  the 
men  who  horrow^  and  the  men  who  lend.  To  these  two 
original  diversities  may  be  reduced  all  those  impertinent 
classifications  of  Gothic  and  Celtic  tribes,  white  men, 
black  men,  red  men.  All  the  dwellers  upon  earth, 
"Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites,"  flock  hither, 
and  do  naturally  fall  in  with  one  or  other  of  these 
primary  distinctions.  The  infinite  superiority  of  the 
former,  which  I  choose  to  designate  as  the  great  race^  is 
discernible  in  their  figure,  port,  and  a  certain  instinctive 
sovereignty.  The  latter  are  born  degraded.  "  He  shall 
serve  his  brethren."  There  is  something  in  the  air  of 
one  of  this  cast,  lean  and  suspicious ;  contrasting  with 
the  open,  trusting,  generous  manners  of  the  other. 

Observe  who  have  been  the  greatest  borrowers  of  all 
ages — Alcibiades,  Falstaff,  Sir  Richard  Steele,  our  late 
incomparable  Brinsley — what  a  family  likeness  in  all 
four! 

What  a  careless,  even  deportment  hath  your  borrow- 
er! what  rosy  gills!  what  a  beautiful  reliance  on  Provi- 


40  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

dence  doth  he  manifest,  taking  no  more  thought  than 
lilies !  What  contempt  for  money,  accounting  it  (yours 
and  mine  especially)  no  better  than  dross !  What  a  lib- 
eral confounding  of  those  pedantic  distinctions  of  meum 
and  tuum  !  or  rather,  what  a  noble  simplification  of  lan- 
guage (beyond  Tooke),  resolving  these  supposed  oppo- 
sites  into  one  clear,  intelligible  pronoun  adjective ! — 
What  near  approaches  doth  he  make  to  the  primitive 
community y  to  the  extent  of  one-half  of  the  principle  at 
least  I 

He  is  the  true  taxer  who  "  calleth  all  the  world  up  to 
be  taxed ;  "  and  the  distance  is  as  vast  between  him  and 
one  of  us^  as  subsisted  between  the  Augustan  Majesty 
and  the  poorest  obolary  Jew  that  paid  it  tribute-pittance 
at  Jerusalem ! — His  exactions,  too,  have  such  a  cheerful, 
voluntary  air!  So  far  removed  from  your  sour  paro- 
chial or  state-gatherers,  those  ink-horn  varlets,  who 
carry  their  want  of  welcome  in  their  faces  I  He  com- 
eth  to  you  with  a  smile,  and  tronbleth  you  with  no  re- 
ceipt ;  confining  himself  to  no  set  season.  Every  day  is 
his  Candlemas,  or  his  Feast  of  Holy  Michael.  He  ap- 
plieth  the  lene  tormentum  of  a  pleasant  look  to  your 
purse — which  to  that  gentle  warmth  expands  her  silken 
leaves,  as  naturally  as  the  cloak  of  the  traveler,  for  which 
sun  and  wind  contended  !  He  is  the  true  Propontic 
which  never  ebbeth!  The  sea  which  taketh  handsomely 
at  each  man's  hand.  In  vain  the  victim,  whom  he  de- 
lighteth  to  honor,  struggles  with  destiny ;  he  is  in  the 
net.  Lend  therefore  cheerfully,  O  man  ordained  to  lend 
— ^that  thou  lose  not  in  the  end,  with  thy  worldly  penny, 
the  reversion  promised.  Combine  not  preposterously  in 
thine  own  person  the  penalties  of  Lazarus  and  of  Dives ! 
but  when  thou  seest  the  proper  authority  coming,  meet 


THE  TWO   RACES   OF  MEN.  41 

it  smilingly,  as  it  were  half-waj.  Oome,  a  handsome 
sacrifice!  See  how  light  he  makes  of  it!  Strain  not 
courtesies  with  a  noble  enemy. 

Reflections  like  the  foregoing  were  forced  upon  my 
mind  by  the  death  of  my  old  friend  Ralph  Bigod,  Esq., 
who  parted  this  life,  on  Wednesday  evening,  dying,  as 
he  had  lived,  without  much  trouble.  He  boasted  him- 
self a  descendant  from  mighty  ancestors  of  that  name, 
who  heretofore  held  ducal  dignities  in  this  realm.  In 
his  actions  and  sentiments  he  belied  not  the  stock  to 
which  he  pretended.  Early  in  life  he  found  himself  in- 
vested with  ample  revenues ;  which,  with  that  noble  dis- 
interestedness which  I  have  noticed  as  inherent  in  men 
of  the  great  race^  he  took  almost  immediate  measures 
ei^tirely  to  dissipate  and  bring  to  nothing :  for  there  is 
something  revolting  in  the  idea  of  a  king  holding  a  pri- 
vate purse,  and  the  thoughts  of  Bigod  were  all  regal. 
Thus  furnished  by  the  very  act  of  disfurnishment ;  get- 
ting rid  of  the  cumbersome  luggage  of  riches,  more  apt 
(as  one  sings) 

"  To  slacken  virtue,  and  abate  her  edge, 
Than  prompt  her  to  do  aught  may  merit  praise," 

he  set  forth,  like  some  Alexander,  upon  his  great  enter- 
prise, "  borrowing  and  to  borrow  !  " 

In  his  periegesis,  or  triumphant  progress  throughout 
this  island,  it  has  been  calculated  that  he  laid  a  tithe 
part  of  the  inhabitants  under  contribution.  I  reject  this 
estimate  as  greatly  exaggerated :  but  having  had  the 
honor  of  accompanying  my  friend  divers  times,  in  his 
perambulations  about  this  vast  city,  I  own  I  was  greatly 
struck  at  first  with  the  prodigious  number  of  faces  we 
met,  who  claimed  a  sort  of  respectful  acquaintance  with 


42  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

us.  He  was  one  day  so  obliging  as  to  explain  the  phe- 
nomenon. It  seems,  these  were  his  tributaries ;  feeders 
of  his  exchequer;  gentlemen,  his  good  friends  (as  he 
was  pleased  to  express  himself),  to  whom  he  had  occa- 
sionally been  beholden  for  a  loan.  Their  multitudes  did 
no  way  disconcert  him.  He  rather  took  a  pride  in  num- 
bering them;  and,  with  Oomus,  seemed  pleased  to  be 
"  stocked  with  so  fair  a  herd." 

With  such  sources,  it  was  a  wonder  how  he  contrived 
to  keep  his  treasury  always  empty.  He  did  it  by  force 
of  an  aphorism,  which  he  had  often  in  his  mouth,  that 
"money  kept  longer  than  three  days  stinks."  So  he 
made  use  of  it  while  it  was  fresh.  A  good  part  he  drank 
away  (for  he  was  an  excellent  toss-pot) ;  some  he  gave 
away,  the  rest  he  threw  away,  literally  tossing  and  hurl- 
ing it  violently  from  him — as  boys  do  burs,  or  as  if  it 
had  been  infectious — into  ponds,  or  ditches,  or  deep 
holes,  inscrutable  cavities  of  the  earth;  or  he  would 
bury  it  (where  he  would  never  seek  it  again)  by  a  river's 
side  under  some  bank,  which  (he  would  facetiously  ob- 
serve) paid  no  interest — but  out  way  from  him  it  must 
go  peremptorily,  as  Hagar's  offspring  into  the  wilder- 
ness, while  it  was  sweet.  He  never  missed  it.  The 
streams  were  perennial  which  fed  his  fisc.  When  new 
supplies  became  necessary,  the  first  person  that  had  the 
felicity  to  fall  in  with  him,  friend  or  stranger,  was  sure 
to  contribute  to  the  deficiency.  For  Bigod  had  an  unde- 
niable way  with  him.  He  had  a  cheerful,  open  exterior, 
a  quick,  jovial  eye,  a  bald  forehead,  just  touched  with 
gray  {cana  fides).  He  anticipated  no  excuse,  and  found 
none.  And,  waiving  for  a  while  my  theory  as  to  the 
great  race,  I  would  put  it  to  the  most  untheorizing  read- 
er, who  may  at  times  have  disposable  coin  in  his  pocket, 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEN.  43 

whether  it  is  not  more  repugnant  to  the  kindliness  of  his 
nature  to  refuse  such  a  one  as  I  am  describing,  than  to 
say  no  to  a  poor  petitionary  rogue  (your  bastard  bor- 
rower), who,  by  his  mumping  visnoray,  tells  you  that  he 
expects  nothing  better;  and,  therefore,  whose  precon- 
ceived notions  and  expectations  you  do  in  reality  so 
much  less  shock  in  the  refusal. 

When  I  think  of  this  man ;  his  fiery  glow  of  heart ; 
his  swell  of  feeling ;  how  magnificent,  how  ideal  he  was ; 
how  great  at  the  midnight  hour ;  and  when  I  compare 
with  him  the  companions  with  whom  I  have  associated 
since,  I  grudge  the  saving  of  a  few  idle  ducats,  and  think 
that  T  am  fallen  into  the  soeiety  of  lenders  and  little 
men. 

To  one  like  Elia,  whose  treasures  are  rather  cased  in 
leather  covers  than  closed  in  iron  coffers,  there  is  a  class 
of  alienators  more  formidable  than  that  which  I  have 
touched  upon ;  I  mean  your  'borrowers  of  hoolcs — those 
mutilators  of  collections,  spoilers  of  the  symmetry  of 
shelves,  and  creators  of  odd  volumes.  There  is  Comber- 
batch,  matchless  in  his  depredations ! 

That  foul  gap  in  the  bottom  shelf  facing  you,  like  a 
great  eye-tooth  knocked  out — (you  are  now  with  me  in 
my  little  back  study  in  Bloomsbury,  reader !) — with  the 
huge  Switzer-like  tomes  on  each  side  (like  the  Guildhall 
giants,  in  their  reformed  posture,  guardant  of  nothing), 
once  held  the  tallest  of  my  folios.  Opera  BonaventurcBy 
choice  and  massy  divinity,  to  which  its  two  supporters 
(school  divinity  also,  but  of  a  lesser  calibre — Bellarmine, 
and  Holy  Thomas)  showed  but  as  dwarfs — itself  an 
Ascapart! — that  Comberbatch  abstracted  upon  the  faith 
of  a  theory  he  holds,  which  is  more  easy,  I  confess,  for 
me  to  suffer  by  than  to  refute,  namely,  that  *'the  title 


44  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELTA. 

to  property  in  a  book  (my  Bonaventura,  for  instance)  is 
in  exact  ratio  to  the  claimant's  powers  of  understanding 
and  appreciating  the  same."  Should  he  go  on  acting 
upon  this  theory,  which  of  our  shelves  is  safe  ? 

The  slight  vacuum  in  the  left-hand  case — two  shelves 
from  the  ceiling — scarcely  distinguishable  but  by  the 
quick  eye  of  a  loser — was  whilom  the  commodious  rest- 
ing-place of  Brown  on  Urn  Burial.  0.  will  hardly  al- 
lege that  he  knows  more  about  that  treatise  than  I  do, 
who  introduced  it  to  him,  and  was,  indeed,  the  first  (of 
the  moderns)  to  discover  its  beauties— but  so  have  I 
known  a  foolish  lover  to  praise  his  mistress  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  rival  more  qualified  to  carry  her  oif  than  him- 
self. Just  below,  Dodsley's  dramas  want  their  fourth  vol- 
ume, where  Vittoria  Oorombona  is!  The  remainder 
nine  are  as  distasteful  as  Priam's  refuse  sons,  when  the 
Fates  borrowed  Hector.  Here  stood  the  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy,  in  sober  state.  There  loitered  the  Complete 
Angler ;  quiet  as  in  life,  by  some  stream-side.  In  yonder 
nook,  John  Buncle,  a  widower  -  volume,  with  "eyes 
closed,"  mourns  his  ravished  mate. 

One  justice  I  must  do  my  friend,  that  if  he  sometimes, 
like  the  sea,  sweeps  away  a  treasure,  at  another  time, 
sea-like,  he  throws  up  as  rich  an  equivalent  to  match  it. 
I  have  a  small  under-collection  of  this  nature  (my  friend's 
gatherings  in  his  various  calls),  picked  up,  he  has  forgot- 
ten at  what  odd  places,  and  deposited  with  as  little  mem- 
ory at  mine.  I  take  in  these  orphans,  the  twice  deserted. 
These  proselytes  of  the  gate  are  welcome  as  the  true  He- 
brews. There  they  stand  in  conjunction;  natives  and 
naturalized.  The  latter  seem  as  little  disposed  to  inquire 
out  their  true  lineage  as  I  am.. — I  charge  no  warehouse- 
room  for  these  deodands,  nor  shall  ever  put  myself  to 


THE  TWO  RACES  OP  MEN.  45 

the  ungentleinanlj  trouble  of  advertising  a  sale  of  them 
to  pay  expenses. 

To  lose  a  volume  to  0.  carries  some  sense  and  mean- 
ing in  it.  You  are  sure  that  he  will  make  one  hearty 
meal  on  your  viands,  if  he  can  give  no  account  of  the 
platter  after  it.  But  what  rnoved  thee,  wayward,  spite- 
ful K.,  to  be  so  importunate  to  carry  off  with  thee,  in 
spite  of  tears  and  adjurations  to  thee  to  forbear,  the 
Letters  of  that  princely  woman,  the  thrice  noble  Mar- 
garet Newcastle? — knowing  at  the  time,  and  knowing 
that  I  knew,  also,  thou  most  assuredly  wouldst  never 
turn  over  one  leaf  of  the  illustrious  folio — what  but  the 
mere  spirit  of  contradiction,  and  childish  love  of  getting 
the  better  of  thy  friend? — Then,  worst  cut  of  all!  to 
transport  it  with  thee  to  the  Galilean  land — 

"  Unworthy  laud  to  harbor  such  a  sweetness, 
A  virtue  in  which  all  ennobling  thoughts  dwelt, 
Pure  thoughts,  kind  thoughts,  high  thoughts,  her  sex's  wonder!" 

— hadst  thou  not  thy  play-books,  and  books  of  jests  and 
fancies,  about  thee,  to  keep  thee  merry,  even  as  thou 
keepest  all  companies  with  thy  quips  and  mirthful  tales  ? 
Child  of  the  green-room,  it  was  unkindly  done  of  thee. 
Thy  wife,  too,  that  part-French,  better-part  English- 
woman!— that  she  could  fix  upon  no  other  treatise  to 
bear  away,  in  kindly  token  of  remembering  us,  than  the 
works  of  Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brook  —  of  which  no 
Frenchman,  nor  woman  of  France,  Italy,  or  England, 
was  ever  by  nature  constituted  to  comprehend  a  tittle! — 
Wai  there  not  Zimmermann  on  Solitude  ? 

Reader,  if  haply  thou  art  blessed  with  a  moderate 
collection,  be  shy  of  showing  it ;  or  if  thy  heart  over- 
floweth  to  lend  them,  lend  thy  books;  but  let  it  be  to 


46  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

such  a  one  as  S.  T.  0. — ^he  will  return  them  (generally 
anticipating  the  time  appointed)  with  usury;  enriched 
with  annotations  tripling  their  value.  I  have  had  expe- 
rience. Many  of  these  precious  MSS.  of  his — (in  matter 
oftentimes,  and  almost  in  quantity  not  unfrequently, 
vying  with  the  originals)  in  no  very  clerkly  hand — legi- 
ble in  my  Daniel ;  in  old  Burton ;  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne; 
and  those  abstruser  cogitations  of  the  Greville,  now, 
alas!  wandering  in  Pagan  lands. — I  counsel  thee,  shut 
not  thy  heart,  nor  thy  library,  against  S.  T.  0. 


NEW-YEAR'S-EVE. 

EvEEY  man  hath  two  birthdays;  two  days,  at  least, 
in  every  year,  which  set  him  upon  revolving  the  lapse  of 
time,  as  it  affects  his  mortal  duration.  The  one  is  that 
which  in  an  especial  manner  he  termeth  Ms.  In  the 
gradual  desuetude  of  old  observances,  this  custom  of 
solemnizing  our  proper  birthday  hath  nearly  passed 
away,  or  is  left  to  children,  who  reflect  nothing  at  all 
about  the  matter,  nor  understand  anything  in  it  beyond 
cake  and  orange.  But  the  birth  of  a  New  Year  is  of  an 
interest  too  wide  to  be  pretermitted  by  king  or  cobbler. 
No  one  ever  regarded  the  first  of  January  with  indiffer- 
ence. It  is  that  from  which  all  date  their  time,  and 
count  upon  what  is  left.  It  is  the  nativity  of  our  com- 
mon Adam. 

Of  all  sound  of  all  bells — bells,  the  music  nighest 
bordering  upon  heaven — most  solemn  and  touching  is 
the  peal  which  rings  out  the  Old  Year.  I  never  heard 
it  without  a  gathering-up  of  my  mind  to  a  concentration 


NEW-YEAR'S-EVE.  47 

of  all  the  images  that  have  been  diflfused  over  the  past 
twelvemonth ;  all  I  have  done  or  suffered,  performed  or 
neglected,  in  that  regretted  time.  I  begin  to  know  its 
worth,  as  when  a  person  dies.  It  takes  a  personal  color ; 
nor  was  it  a  poetical  flight  in  a  contemporary  when  he 
exclaimed — 

"  I  saw  the  skirts  of  the  departing  year." 

It  is  no  more  than  what,  in  sober  sadness,  every  one 
of  us  seems  to  be  conscious  of,  in  that  awful  leave-taking. 
I  am  sure  I  felt  it,  and  all  felt  it  with  me,  last  night; 
though  some  of  my  companions  affected  rather  to  mani- 
fest an  exhilaration  at  the  birth  of  the  coming  year,  than 
any  very  tender  regrets  for  the  decease  of  its  prede- 
cessor.   But  I  am  none  of  those  who — 

**  Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest." 

I  am  naturally,  beforehand,  shy  of  novelties:  new 
books,  new  faces,  new  years — from  some  mental  twist 
which  makes  it  difficult  in  me  to  face  the  prospective. 
I  have  almost  ceased  to  hope ;  and  am  sanguine  only  in 
the  prospects  of  other  (former)  years.  I  plunge  into 
foregone  visions  and  conclusions.  I  encounter  pell-mell 
with  past  disappointments.  I  am  armor-proof  against 
old  discouragements.  I  forgive,  or  overcome  in  fancy, 
old  adversaries.  I  play  over  again  for  love^  as  the  game- 
sters phrase  it,  games  for  which  I  once  paid  so  dear.  I 
would  scarce  now  have  any  of  those  untoward  accidents 
and  events  of  my  life  reversed.  I  would  no  more  alter 
them  than  the  incidents  of  some  well-contrived  novel. 
Methinks  it  is  better  that  I  should  have  pined  away  sev- 
en of  my  goldenest  years,  when  I  was  thrall  to  the  fair 
hair  and  fairer  eyes  of  Alice  W — n,  than  that  so  passion- 


48  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

ate  a  love-adventure  should  be  lost.  It  was  better  that 
our  family  should  have  missed  that  legacy  which  old 
Dorrell  cheated  us  of,  than  that  I  should  have  at  this 
moment  two  thousand  pounds  in  banco,  and  be  without 
the  idea  of  that  specious  old  rogue. 

In  a  degree  beneath  manhood,  it  is  my  infirmity  to 
look  back  upon  those  early  days.  Do  I  advance  a  para- 
dox when  I  say  that,  skipping  over  the  intervention  of 
forty  years,  a  man  may  have  leave  to  love  himself,  with- 
out the  imputation  of  self-love  ? 

If  I  know  aught  of  myself,  no  one  whose  mind  is  in- 
trospective— and  mine  is  painfully  so — can  have  a  less 
respect  for  his  present  identity  than  I  have  for  the  man 
Elia.  I  know  him  to  be  light  and  vain  and  humorsome ; 
a  notorious ;  addicted  to ;  averse  from  coun- 
sel, neither  taking  it  nor  ofibring  it ;  besides ;   a 

stammering  buffoon — what  you  will,  lay  it  on  and  spare 
not :  I  subscribe  to  it  all,  and  much  more  than  thou 
canst  be  willing  to  lay  at  his  door ;  but  for  the  child 
Elia,  that  "  other  me  "  there  in  the  background,  I  must 
take  leave  to  cherish  the  remembrance  of  that  young 
master,  with  as  little  reference,  I  protest,  to  this  stupid 
changeling  of  five-and-forty  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of 
some  other  house  and  not  of  my  parents.  I  can  cry  over 
its  patient  small-pox  at  five  and  rougher  mendicaments. 
I  can  lay  its  poor  fevered  head  upon  the  sick-pillow  at 
Christ's,  and  wake  with  it  in  surprise  at  the  gentle  post- 
ure of  maternal  tenderness  hanging  over  it,  that  un- 
known had  watched  its  sleep.  I  know  how  it  shrank 
from  any  the  least  color  of  falsehood.  God  help  thee, 
Elia,  how  art  thou  changed!  Thou  art  sophisticated. 
I  know  how  honest,  how  courageous  (for  a  weakling), 
it  was — how  religious,  how  imaginative,  how  hopeful! 


NEW-YEAR»S-EVE.  49 

From  what  have  I  not  fallen,  if  the  child  I  remember 
was  indeed  myself — and  not  some  dissembling  guardian 
presenting  a  false  identity  to  give  the  rule  to  my  un- 
practised steps  and  regulate  the  tone  of  my  moral  being! 

That  I  am  fond  of  indulging,  beyond  a  hope  of  sym- 
pathy, in  such  retrospection,  may  be  the  symptom  of 
some  sickly  idiosyncrasy.  Or,  is  it  owing  to  another 
cause :  simply  that,  being  without  wife  or  family,  I  have 
not  learned  to  project  myself  enough  out  of  myself; 
and,  having  no  offspring  of  my  own  to  dally  with,  I 
turn  back  upon  memory,  and  adopt  my  own  early  idea 
as  my  heir  and  favorite  ?  If  these  speculations  seem 
fantastical  to  thee,  reader  (a  busy  man,  perchance),  if  I 
tread  out  of  the  way  of  thy  sympathy,  and  am  singular- 
ly conceited  only,  I  retire,  impenetrable  to  ridicule,  un- 
der the  phantom-cloud  of  Elia. 

The  elders,  with  whom  I  was  brought  up,  were  of  a 
character  not  likely  to  let  slip  the  sacred  observance  of 
any  old  institution :  and  the  ringing  out  of  the  old  year 
was  kept  by  them  with  circumstances  of  peculiar  cere- 
mony.— In  those  days  the  sound  of  those  midnight 
chimes,  though  it  seemed  to  raise  hilarity  in  all  around 
me,  never  failed  to  bring  a  train  of  pensive  imagery 
into  my  fancy.  Yet  I  then  scarce  conceived  what  it 
meant,  or  thought  of  it  as  a  reckoning  that  concerned 
me.  Not  childhood  alone,  but  the  young  man  till  thirty, 
never  feels  practically  that  he  is  mortal.  He  knows  it, 
indeed,  and,  if  need  were,  he  could  preach  a  homily  on 
the  fragility  of  life ;  but  he  brings  it  not  home  to  him- 
self, any  more  than  in  a  hot  June  we  can  appropriate  to 
oar  imagination  the  freezing  days  of  December.  But 
now — shall  I  confess  a  truth? — I  feel  these  audits  but 
too  powerfully.     I  begin  to  count  the  probabilities  of 


50  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

my  duration,  and  to  grudge  at  the  expenditure  of  mo- 
ments and  shortest  periods,  like  misers'  farthings.  In 
proportion  as  the  years  both  lessen  and  shorten,  I  set 
more  count  upon  their  periods,  and  would  fain  lay  my 
ineffectual  finger  upon  the  spoke  of  the  great  wheel.  I 
am  not  content  to  pass  away  "  like  a  weaver's  shuttle." 
Those  metaphors  solace  me  not,  nor  sweeten  the  unpal- 
atable draught  of  mortality.  I  care  not  to  be  carried 
with  the  tide,  that  smoothly  bears  human  life  to  eter- 
nity ;  and  reluct  at  the  inevitable  course  of  destiny.  I 
am  in  love  with  this  green  earth,  the  face  of  town  and 
country,  the  unspeakable  rural  solitudes,  and  the  sweet 
security  of  streets.  I  would  set  up  my  tabernacle  here. 
I  am  content  to  stand  still  at  the  age  to  which  I  am  ar- 
rived, I  and  my  friends,  to  be  no  younger,  no  richer,  no 
handsomer.  I  do  not  want  to  be  weaned  by  age,  or 
drop,  like  mellow  fruit,  as  they  say,  into  the  grave. — 
Any  alteration,  on  this  earth  of  mine,  in  diet  or  in  lodg- 
ing, puzzles  and  discomposes  me.  My  household  gods 
plant  a  terrible  fixed  foot,  and  are  not  rooted  up  with- 
out blood.  They  do  not  willingly  seek  Lavinian  shores. 
A  new  state  of  being  staggers  me. 

Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks,  and 
summer  holidays,  and  the  greenness  of  fields,  and  the 
delicious  juices  of  meats  and  fishes,  and  society,  and  the 
cheerful  glass,  and  candle-light,  and  fireside  conversa- 
tions, and  innocent  vanities  and  jests,  and  irony  itself- — 
do  these  things  go  out  with  life  ? 

Can  a  ghost  laugh  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides,  when  you 
are  pleasant  with  him  ? 

And  you,  my  midnight  darlings,  rby  Folios!  must  I 
part  with  the  intense  delight  of  having  you  (huge  arm- 
fuls)  in  my  embraces  ?    Must  knowledge  come  to  me,  if 


NEW-YEAR'S-EVE.  51 

it  come  at  all,  by  some  awkward  experiment  of  in- 
tuition, and  no  longer  by  this  familiar  process  of  read- 
ing? 

Shall  I  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the  smiling 
indications  which  point  me  to  them  here — the  recogniza- 
ble face— the  "sweet  assurance  of  a  look" — ? 

In  winter  this  intolerable  disinclination  to  dying — to 
give  it  its  mildest  name — does  more  especially  haunt  and 
beset  me.  In  a  genial  August  noon,  beneath  a  swelter- 
ing sky,  death  is  almost  problematic.  At  those  times  do 
such  poor  snakes  as  myself  enjoy  an  immortality.  Then 
we  expand  and  burgeon.  Then  we  are  as  strong  again, 
as  valiant  again,  as  wise  again,  and  a  great  deal  taller. 
The  blast  that  nips  and  shrinks  me,  puts  me  in  thoughts 
of  death.  All  things  allied  to  the  insubstantial,  wait  upon 
that  master-feeling;  cold,  numbness,  dreams,  perplexity; 
moonlight  itself,  with  its  shadowy  and  spectral  appear- 
ances— that  cold  ghost  of  the  sun,  or  Phoebus's  sickly 
sister,  like  that  innutritions  one  denounced  in  the  Canti- 
cles— I  am  none  of  her  minions — I  hold  with  the  Per- 
sian. 

.  Whatever  thwarts,  or  puts  me  out  of  my  way,  brings 
death  into  my  mind.  All  partial  evils,  like  humors,  run 
into  that  capital  plague-sore. — I  have  heard  some  profess 
an  indifference  to  life.  Such  hail  the  end  of  their  exist- 
ence as  a  port  of  refuge ;  and  speak  of  the  grave  as  of 
some  soft  arms,  in  which  they  may  slumber  as  on  a  pil- 
low. Some  have  wooed  death — but  out  upon  thee,  I  say, 
thou  foul,  ugly  phantom !  I  detest,  abhor,  execrate,  and 
(with  Friar  John)  give  thee  to  sixscore  thousand  devils, 
as  in  no  instance  to  be  excused  or  tolerated,  but  shunned 
as  a  universal  viper;  to  be  branded,  proscribed,  and 
spoken  evil  of !    In  no  way  can  I  be  brought  to  digest 


52  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

tbee,  thou  thin,  melancholy  Privation^  or  more  frightful 
and  confounding  Positive  / 

Those  antidotes,  prescribed  against  the  fear  of  thee, 
are  altogether  frigid  and  insulting,  like  thyself.  For 
what  satisfaction  hath  a  man,  that  he  shall  "lie  down 
with  kings  and  emperors  in  death,"  who  in  his  lifetime 
never  greatly  coveted  the  society  of  such  bedfellows  ? — 
or,  forsooth,  that  "so  shall  the  fairest  face  appear?" — 
why,  to  comfort  me,  must  Alice  W — n  be  a  goblin? 
More  than  all,  I  conceive  disgust  at  those  impertinent 
and  misbecoming  familiarities,  inscribed  upon  your  ordi- 
nary tombstones.  Every  dead  man  must  take  upon  him- 
self to  be  lecturing  me  with  his  odious  truism,  that 
"  Such  as  he  now  is  I  must  shortly  be."  Not  so  shortly, 
friend,  perhaps  as  thou  imaginest.  In  the  mean  time  I 
am  alive.  I  move  about.  I  am  worth  twenty  of  thee. 
Know  thy  betters !  Thy  ISTew-Years'-days  are  past.  I 
survive,  a  jolly  candidate  for  1821.  Another  cup  of  wine 
— and  while  that  turncoat  bell,  that  just  now  mournfully 
chanted  the  obsequies  of  1820  departed,  with  changed 
notes  lustily  rings  in  a  successor,  let  us  attune  to  its  peal 
the  song  made  on  a  like  occasion,  by  hearty,  cheerful 
Mr.  Cotton: 

"the  new  yeae. 
"  Hark,  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 

Tells  us,  the  day  himself's  not  far ; 

And  see  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 

He  gilds  the  western  hills  with  light. 

With  bim  old  Janus  doth  appear. 

Peeping  into  the  future  year. 

With  such  a  look  as  seems  to  say, 

The  prospect  is  not  good  that  way. 

Thus  do  we  rise  ill  sights  to  see, 

And  'gainst  ourselves  to  prophesy ; 


NEW-YEAR'S~EVE.  53 

When  the  prophetic  fear  of  things 

A  more  tormenting  mischief  brings, 

More  full  of  soul-tormenting  gall 

Than  direst  mischiefs  can  befall. 

But  stay !  but  stay !  methinks  my  sight, 

Better  informed  by  clearer  light, 

Discerns  sereneness  in  that  brow, 

That  all  contracted  seemed  but  now. 

His  reversed  face  may  show  distaste, 

And  frown  upon  the  ills  are  past ; 

But  that  which  this  way  looks  is  clear. 

And  smiles  upon  the  New-born  Year. 

He  looks  too  from  a  place  so  high. 

The  Year  lies  open  to  his  eye ; 

And  all  the  moments  open  are 

To  the  exact  discoverer. 

Yet  more  and  more  he  smiles  upon 

The  happy  revolution. 

Why  should  we  then  suspect  or  fear 

The  influences  of  a  year  ? 

So  smiles  upon  us  the  first  morn. 

And  speaks  us  good  so  soon  as  born ; 

Plague  on't !  the  last  was  ill  enough. 

This  cannot  but  make  better  proof ; 

Or,  at  the  worst,  as  we  brushed  through 

The  last,  why  so  we  may  this  too ; 

And  then  the  next  in  reason  should 

Be  superexcellently  good : 

For  the  worst  ills  (we  daily  see) 

Have  no  more  perpetuity 

Than  the  best  fortunes  that  do  fall ; 

Which  also  bring  us  wherewithal 

Longer  their  being  to  support. 

Than  those  do  of  the  other  sort : 


54  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

And  who  has  one  good  year  in  three, 
And  yet  repines  at  destiny, 
Appears  ungrateful  in  the  Cvise, 
And  merits  not  the  good  he  has. 
Then  let  us  welcome  the  New  Guest 
With  lusty  brimmers  of  the  best : 
Mirth  always  should  Good  Fortune  meet, 
And  renders  e'en  Disaster  sweet : 
And  though  the  Princess  turn  her  back, 
Let  us  but  line  ourselves  with  sack, 
We  better  shall  by  far  hold  out. 
Till  the  next  Year  she  face  about." 

How  say  you,  reader — do  not  these  verses  smack  of 
the  rough  magnanimity  of  the  old  English  vein?  Do 
they  not  fortify  like  a  cordial ;  enlarging  the  heart,  and 
productive  of  sweet  blood,  and  generous  spirits,  in  the 
concoction?  Where  be  those  puling  fears  of  death,  just 
now  expressed  or  affected? — Passed  like  a  cloud — ab- 
sorbed in  the  purging  sunlight  of  clear  poetry — clean 
washed  away  by  a  wave  of  genuine  Helicon,  your  only 
Spa  for  these  hypochondries. — And  now  another  cup  of 
the  generous!  and  a  merry  New  Year,  and  many  of 
them,  to  you  all,  my  masters  I 


MRS.  BATTLERS  OPINIONS   ON  WHIST. 

"  A  CLEAR  fire,  a  clean  hearth,  and  the  rigor  of  the 
game."  This  was  the  celebrated  wish  of  old  Sarah  Battle 
(now  with  God),  who,  next  to  her  devotions,  loved  a 
good  game  of  whist.  She  was  none  of  your  lukewarm 
gamesters,  your  half-and-half  players,  who  have  no  ob- 


MRS.  BATTLE'S  OPINIONS  ON  WHIST.       55 

jection  to  take  a  hand,  if  you  want  ono  to  make  up  a 
rubber ;  who  affirm  that  they  have  no  pleasure  in  win- 
ning; that  they  like  to  win  one  game  and  lose  another; 
that  they  can  while  away  an  hour  very  agreeably  at  a 
card-table,  but  are  indifferent  whether  they  play  or  no ; 
and  will  desire  an  adversary,  who  has  slipped  a  wrong 
card,  to  take  it  up  and  play  another.  These  insufferable 
triflers  are  the  curse  of  a  table.  One  of  these  flies  will 
spoil  a  whole  pot.  Of  such  it  may  be  said  that  they  do 
not  play  at  cards,  but  only  play  at  playing  at  them. 

Sarah  Battle  was  none  of  that  breed.  She  detested 
them,  as  I  do,  from  her  heart  and  soul,  and  would  not, 
save  upon  a  striking  emergency,  willingly  seat  herself  at 
the  same  table  with  them.  She  loved  a  thorough-paced 
partner,  a  determined  enemy.  She  took  and  gave  no 
concessions.  She  hated  favors.  She  never  made  a  re- 
voke, nor  ever  passed  it  over  in  her  adversary  without 
exacting  the  utmost  forfeiture.  She  fought  a  good  fight : 
cut  and  thrust.  She  held  not  her  good  sword  (her  cards) 
"like  a  dancer."  She  sat  bolt  upright,  and  neither 
showed  you  her  cards  nor  desired  to  see  yoUrs.  All 
people  have  their  blind  side — their  superstitions ;  and  I 
have  heard  her  declare,  under  the  rose,  that  hearts  was 
her  favorite  suit. 

I  iiever  in  my  life — and  I  knew  Sarah  Battle  many 
of  the  best  years  of  it — saw  her  take  out  her  snuff-box 
when  it  was  her  turn  to  play ;  or  snuff  a  candle  in  the 
middle  of  a  game ;  or  ring  for  a  servant  till  it  was  fairly 
over.  She  never  introduced,  or  connived  at,  miscellane- 
ous conversation  during  its  procesSi  As  she  emphati- 
cally observed,  cards  were  cards ;  and  if  I  ever  saw  un- 
mingled  distaste  in  her  fine  last-century  countenance,  it 
was  at  the  airs  of  a  young  gentleman  of  a  literary  turn, 


56  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

who  had  been  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  take  a  hand  ; 
and  who,  in  his  excess  of  candor,  declared  that  he 
thought  there  was  no  harm  in  unbending  the  mind  now 
and  then,  after  serious  studies,  in  recreations  of  that 
kind !  She  could  not  bear  to  have  her  noble  occupation, 
to  which  she  wound  up  her  faculties,  considered  in  that 
light.  It  was  her  business,  her  duty,  the  thing  she  came 
into  the  world  to  do — and  she  did  it.  She  unbent  her 
mind  afterward,  over  a  book.  ''^[^ 

Pope  was  her  favorite  author;  his  *'Rape  of  the 
Lock  "  her  favorite  work.  She  once  did  me  the  favor  to 
play  over  with  me  (with  the  cards)  his  celebrated  game 
of  ombre  in  that  poem ;  and  to  explain  to  me  how  far  it 
agreed  with,  and  in  what  points  it  would  be  found  to 
differ  from,  tradrille.  Her  illustrations  were  apposite 
and  poignant;  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  sending  the 
substance  of  them  to  Mr.  Bowles ;  but  I  suppose  they 
came  too  late  to  be  inserted  among  his  ingenious  notes 
upon  that  author. 

Quadrille,  she  has  often  told  me,  was  her  first  love ; 
but  whist  had  engaged  her  maturer  esteem.  The  for- 
mer, she  said,  was  showy  and  specious,  and  likely  to 
allure  young  persons.  The  uncertainty  and  quick  shift- 
ing of  partners — a  thing  which  the  constancy  of  whist 
abhors ;  the  dazzling  supremacy  and  regal  investiture  of 
spadille — absurd,  as  she  justly  observed,  in  the  pure  aris- 
tocracy of  whist,  where  his  crown  and  garter  give  him 
no  proper  power  above  his  brother  nobility  of  the  aces  ; 
the  giddy  vanity,  so  taking  to  the  inexperienced,  of  play- 
ing alone ;  above  all,  the  overpowering  attractions  of  a 
Sans  Prendre  Vole — to  the  triumph  of  which  there  is 
certainly  nothing  parallel  or  approaching  in  the  contin- 
gencies of  whist — all  these,  she  would  say,  make  quad- 


MRS.  BATTLE'S   OPINIONS   ON   WHIST.  57 

rille  a  game  of  captivation  to  the  young  and  enthusiastic. 
But  whist  was  the  solider  game — that  was  her  word.  It 
was  a  long  meal ;  not,  like  quadrille,  a  feast  of  snatches. 
One  or  two  rubbers  might  coextend  in  duration  with  an 
evening.  They  gave  time  to  form  rooted  friendships,  to 
cultivate  steady  enmities.  She  despised  the  chance- 
started,  capricious,  and  ever-fluctuating  alliances  of  the 
other.  The  skirmishes  of  quadrille,  she  would  say,  re- 
minded her  of  the  petty,  ephemeral  embroilments  of  the 
little  Italian  states,  depicted  by  Machiavel :  perpetually 
changing  postures  and  connections;  bitter  foes  to-day, 
sugared  darlings  to-morrow ;  kissing  and  scratching  in  a 
breath  ;  but  the  wars  of  whist  were  comparable  to  the 
long,  steady,  deep-rooted,  rational  antipathies  of  the 
great  French  and  English  nations. 

A  grave  simplicity  was  what  she  chiefly  admired  in 
her  favorite  game.  There  was  nothing  silly  in  it,  like 
the  nob  in  cribbage — nothing  superfluous.  No  flushes — 
that  most  irrational  of  all  pleas  that  a  reasonable  being 
can  set  up  ! — that  any  one  should  claim  four  by  virtue  of 
holding  cards  of  the  same  mark  and  color,  without  ref- 
erence to  the  playing  of  the  game,  or  the  individual 
worth  or  pretensions  of  the  cards  themselves!  She 
held  this  to  be  a  solecism ;  as  pitiful  an  ambition  at  cards 
as  alliteration  is  in  authorship.  She  despised  superfici- 
ality, and  looked  deeper  than  the  colors  of  things.  Suits 
were  soldiers,  she  would  say,  and  must  have  a  uniform- 
ity of  ray  to  distinguish  them  ;  but  what  should  we  say 
to  a  foolish  squire,  who  should  claim  a  merit  from 
dressing  up  his  tenantry  in  red  jackets,  that  never  were 
to  be  marshaled — never  to  take  the  field  ?  She  even 
wished  that  whist  were  more  simple  than  it  is;  and,  in 
my  mind,  would  have  stripped  it  of  some  appendages. 


58  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

which,  in  the  state  of  human  frailty,  may  be  venially, 
and  even  commendably,  allowed  of.  She  saw  no  reason 
for  the  deciding  of  the  trump  by  the  turn  of  the  card. 
Why  not  one  suit  always  trumps?  Why  two  colors, 
when  the  mark  of  the  suits  would  have  sufficiently  dis- 
tinguished them  without  it  ? 

"But  the  eye,  my  dear  madam,  is  agreeably  re- 
freshed with  the  variety.  Man  is  not  a  creature  of 
pure  reason — he  must  have  his  senses  delightfully  ap- 
pealed to.  We  see  it  in  Koman  Catholic  countries, 
where  the  music  and  the  paintings  draw  in  many  to 
worship,  whom  your  Quaker  spirit  of  unsensualizing 
would  have  kept  out.  You  yourself  have  a  pretty  col- 
lection of  paintings — but  confess  to  me,  whether  walk- 
ing in  your  gallery  at  Sandham,  among  those  clear  Van- 
dykes, or  among  the  Paul  Potters  in  the  anteroom,  you 
ever  felt  your  bosom  glow  with  an  elegant  delight,  at  all 
comparable  to  that  you  have  it  in  your  power  to  expe- 
rience most  evenings  over  a  well-arranged  assortment  of 
the  court-cards? — the  pretty  antic  habits,  like  heralds  in 
a  procession— the  gay,  triumph-assuring  scarlets — the 
contrasting,  deadly-killing  sables — the  *  hoary  majesty  of 
spades ' — Pani  in  all  his  glory ! 

"All  these  might  be  dispensed  with;  and  with  their 
naked  names  upon  the  drab  pasteboard,  the  game  might 
go  on  very  well,  pictureless.  But  the  teauty  of  cards 
would  be  extinguished  forever.  Stripped  of  all  that  is 
imaginative  in  them,  they  must  degenerate  into  mere 
gambling.  Imagine  a  dull,  deal  board,  or  drum-head,  to 
spread  them  on,  instead  of  that  nice  verdant  carpet  (next 
to  Nature's),  fittest  arena  for  those  courtly  combatants  to 
play  their  gallant  jousts  and  tourneys  in  I  Exchange 
those  delicately-turned  ivory  markers — (work  of  Chinese 


MRS.  BATTLE'S  OPINIONS  ON  WHIST.         59 

artist,  unconscious  of  their  symbol,  or  as  profanely 
slighting  their  true  application  as  the  arrantest  Ephesian 
journeyman  that  turned  out  those  little  shrines  for  the 
goddess) — exchange  them  for  little  bits  of  leather  (our 
ancestors'  money),  or  chalk  and  a  slate  I  " 

The  old  lady,  with  a  smile,  confessed  the  soundness 
of  my  logic ;  and  to  her  approbation  of  my  arguments 
on  her  favorite  topic  that  evening,  I  have  always  fancied 
myself  indebted  for  the  legacy  of  a  curious  cribbage- 
board,  made  of  the  finest  Sienna  marble,  which  her  ma- 
ternal uncle  (old  "Walter  Plumer,  whom  I  have  elsewhere 
celebrated)  brought  with  him  from  Florence :  this,  and 
a  trifle  of  five  hundred  pounds,  carae  to  me  at  her  death. 

The  former  bequest  (which  I  do  not  least  value)  I 
have  kept  with  religious  care;  though  she  herself,  to 
confess  the  truth,  was  never  greatly  taken  with  crib- 
bage.  It  was  an  essentially  vulgar  game,  I  have  heard 
her  say — disputing  with  her  uncle,  who  was  very  par- 
tial to  it.  She  could  never  heartily  bring  her  mouth  to 
pronounce  *'  ^o,"  or  "  That^s  a  go^  She  called  it  an 
ungrammatical  game.  The  pegging  teased  her.  I  once 
knew  her  to  forfeit  a  rubber  (a  five-dollar  stake),  be- 
cause she  would  not  take  advantage  of  the  turn-up  knave 
which  would  have  given  it  her,  but  which  she  must 
have  claimed  by  the  disgraceful  tenure  of  declaring  "  two 
for  his  heeUy  There  is  something  extremely  genteel  in 
this  sort  of  self-denial.  Sarah  Battle  was  a  gentlewoman 
born. 

Piquet  she  held  the  best  game  at  the  cards  for  two 
persons,  though  she  would  ridicule  the  pedantry  of  the 
terms — such  as  pique — ^repique — the  capot — they  savored 
(she  thoaght)  of  affectation.  But  games  for  two,  or  even 
three,  she  never  greatly  cared  for.     She  loved  the  quad- 


60  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

rate,  or  square.  She  would  argue  thus :  Cards  are  war- 
fare ;  the  ends  are  gain,  with  glory.  But  cards  are  war, 
in  disguise  of  a  sport:  when  single  adversaries  encoun- 
ter, the  ends  proposed  are  too  palpable.  By  themselves 
it  is  too  close  a  fight ;  with  spectators  it  is  not  much  bet- 
tered. No  looker-on  can  be  interested,  except  for  a  bet, 
and  then  it  is  a  mere  affair  of  money;  he  cares  not  for 
your  luck  sympathetically^  or  for  your  play. — Three  are 
still  worse;  a  mere  naked  war  of  every  man  against 
every  man,  as  in  cribbage,  without  league  or  alliance; 
or  a  rotation  of  petty  and  contradictory  interests,  a  suc- 
cession of  heartless  leagues,  and  not  much  more  hearty 
infractions  of  them,  as  in  tradrille. — But  in  square  games 
(she  meant  whist) ^  all  that  is  possible  to  be  attained  in 
card-playing  is  accomplished.  There  are  the  incentives 
of  profit  with  honor,  common  to  every  species — though 
the  latter  can  be  but  very  imperfectly  enjoyed  in  those 
other  games,  where  the  spectator  is  only  feebly  a  partici- 
pator. But  the  parties  in  whist  are  spectators  and  prin- 
cipals too.  They  are  a  theatre  to  themselves,  and  a 
looker-on  is  not  wanted.  He  is  rather  worse  than  noth- 
ing, and  an  impertinence.  Whist  abhors  neutrality,  or 
interests  beyond  its  sphere.  You  glory  in  some  surpris- 
ing stroke  of  skill  or  fortune,  not  because  a  cold — or 
even  an  interested — by-stander  witnesses  it,  but  because 
your  partner  sympathizes  in  the  contingency.  You  \\f in 
for  two.  You  triumph  for  two.  Two  are  exalted.  Two 
again  are  mortified ;  which  divides  their  disgrace,  as  the 
conjunction  doubles  (by  taking  off  the  invidiousness) 
your  glories.  Two  losing  to  two  are  better  reconciled 
than  one  to  one  in  that  close  butchery.  The  hostile 
feeling  is  weakened  by  multiplying  the  channels.  War 
becomes  a  civil  game. — By  such  reasonings  as  these  the 


MRS.   BATTLE'S  OPINIONS   ON  WHIST.  61 

old  lady  was  accustomed  to  defend  her  favorite  pas- 
time. 

ITo  inducement  could  ever  prevail  upon  her  to  play 
at  any  game,  where  chance  entered  into  the  composition, 
for  nothing.  Chance,  she  would  argue — and  here  again 
admire  the  suhtlety  of  her  conclusion — chance  is  nothing, 
but  where  something  else  depends  upon  it.  It  is  obvious 
that  cannot  be  glory.  What  rational  cause  of  exultation 
could  it  give  to  a  man  to  turn  up  size  ace  a  hundred 
times  together  by  himself?  or  before  spectators,  where  no 
stake  is  depending? — Make  a  lottery  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand tickets  with  but  one  fortunate  number — and  what 
possible  principle  of  our  nature,  except  stupid  wonder- 
ment, could  it  gratify  to  gain  that  number  as  many  times 
successively,  without  a  prize?  Therefore,  she  disliked 
the  mixture  of  chance  in  backgammon,  where  it  was  not 
played  for  money.  She  called  it  foolish,  and  those  peo- 
ple idiots,  who  were  taken  with  a  lucky  hit  under  such 
circumstances.  Games  of  pure  skill  were  as  little  to  her 
fancy.  Played  for  a  stake,  they  were  a  mere  system  of 
overreaching.  Played  for  glory,  they  were  a  mere  set- 
ting of  one  man's  wit — ^his  memory,  or  combination- 
faculty  rather — against  another's;  like  a  mock-engage- 
ment at  a  review,  bloodless  and  profitless.  She  could 
not  conceive  a  game  wanting  the  spritely  infusion  of 
chance,  the  handsome  excuses  of  good  fortune.  Two 
people  playing  at  chess  in  a  corner  of  a  room,  while 
whist  was  stirring  in  the  centre,  would  inspire  her  with 
insufferable  horror  and  ennui.  Those  well- cut  simili- 
tudes of  Castles,  and  Knights,  the  imagery  of  the  board, 
she  would  argue  (and  I  think  in  this  case  justly),  were 
entirely  misplaced  and  senseless.  Those  hard  head-con- 
tests can  in  no  instance  ally  with  the  fancy.     They  re- 


62  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

ject  form  and  color.  A  pencil  and  dry  slate  (she  used 
to  say)  were  the  proper  arena  for  such  combatants. 

To  those  puny  objectors  against  cards,  as  nurturing 
the  bad  passions,  she  would  retort  that  man  is  a  gaming 
animal.  He  must  be  always  trying  to  get  the  better  in 
something  or  other ;  that  this  passion  can  scarcely  be 
more  safely  expended  than  upon  a  game  at  cards ;  that 
cards  are  a  temporary  illusion ;  in  truth,  a  mere  drama ; 
for  we  do  but  play  at  being  mightily  concerned,  where 
a  few  idle  shillings  are  at  stake ;  yet,  during  the  illusion, 
we  are  as  mightily  concerned  as  those  whose  stake  is 
crowns  and  kingdoms.  They  are  a  sort  of  dream-fight- 
ing; much  ado;  great  battling,  and  little  bloodshed; 
mighty  means  for  disproportioned  ends ;  quite  as  divert- 
ing, and  a  great  deal  more  innoxious,  than  many  of  those 
more  serious  games  of  life,  which  men  play,  without  es- 
teeming them  to  be  such. 

With  great  deference  to  the  old  lady's  judgment  in 
these  matters,  I  think  I  have  experienced  some  moments 
in  my  life,  when  playing  at  cards  for  nothing  has  even 
been  agreeable.  When  I  am  in  sickness,  or  not  in  the 
best  spirits,  I  sometimes  call  for  the  cards,  and  play  a 
game  at  piquet /(?r  loi^e  with  my  cousin  Bridget — Bridget 
Elia. 

I  grant  there  is  something  sneaking  in  it ;  but  with  a 
toothache,  or  a  sprained  ankle — when  you  are  subdued 
and  humble — you  are  glad  to  put  up  with  an  inferior 
spring  of  action. 

There  is  such  a  thing  in  nature,  I  am  convinced,  as 
sicTc  whist. 

I  grant  it  is  not  the  highest  style  of  man — I  deprecate 
the  manes  of  Sarah  Battle — she  lives  not,  alas !  to  whom 
I  should  apologize. 


A   CHAPTER  ON  EARS.  63 

At  such  times,  those  terms  which  my  old  friend  ob- 
jected to,  come  in  as  something  admissible. — I  love  to 
get  a  tierce  or  a  quatorze,  though  they  mean  nothing. 
I  am  subdued  to  an  inferior  interest.  Those  shadows  of 
winning  amuse  me. 

That  last  game  I  had  with  my  sweet  cousin  (I  capot- 
ted  her) — (dare  I  tell  thee,  how  foolish  I  am?) — I  wished 
it  might  have  lasted  forever,  though  we  gained  nothing, 
and  lost  nothing,  though  it  was  a  mere  shade  of  play :  I 
would  be  content  to  go  on  in  that  idle  folly  forever. 
The  pipkin  should  be  ever  boiling,  that  was  to  prepare 
the  gentle  lenitive  to  my  foot,  which  Bridget  was  doomed 
to  apply  after  the  game  was  over:  and,  as  I  do  not  much 
relish  appliances,  there  it  should  ever  bubble.  Bridget 
and  I  should  be  ever  playing. 


A  CHAPTER  ON"  EARS. 

I  HAVE  no  ear. — 

Mistake  me  not,  reader — nor  imagine  that  I  am  by- 
nature  destitute  of  those  exterior  twin  appendages,  hang- 
ing ornaments,  and  (architecturally  speaking)  handsome 
volutes  to  the  human  capital.  Better  my  mother  had 
never  borne  me. — I  am,  I  think,  rather  delicately  than 
copiously  provided  with  those  conduits ;  and  I  feel  no 
disposition  to  envy  the  mule  for  his  plenty,  or  the  mole 
for  her  exactness,  in  those  ingenious  labyrinthine  inlets 
— those  indispensable  side-intelligencers. 

Neither  have  I  incurred,  or  done  anything  to  incur, 
with  Defoe,  that  hideous  disfigurement,  which  constrained 
him  to  draw  upon  assurance — to  feel  "  quite  unabashed," 


64  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

and  at  ease  upon  that  article.  I  was  never,  I  thank  my 
stars,  in  the  pillory;  nor,  if  I  read  them  aright,  is  it 
within  the  compass  of  my  destiny  that  I  ever  should  be. 

When,  therefore,  I  say  that  I  have  no  ear,  you  will 
understand  me  to  mesji—for  music.  To  say  that  this 
heart  never  melted  at  the  concord  of  sweet  sounds,  would 
he  a  foul  self -libel.  "  Water  parted  from  the  sea''''  never 
fails  to  move  it  strangely.  So  does  "  In  infancy.''''  But 
they  were  used  to  be  sung  at  her  harpsichord  (the  old- 
fashioned  instrument  in  vogue  in  those  days)  by  a  gentle- 
woman— the  gentlest,  sure,  that  ever  merited  the  appel- 
lation— the  sweetest — why  should  I  hesitate  to  name 

Mrs.  S ,  once  the  blooming  Fanny  "Weatheral  of  the 

Temple — who  had  power  to  thrill  the  soul  of  Elia,  small 
imp  as  he  was,  even  in  his  long  coats,  and  to  make  him 
glow,  tremble,  and  blush  with  a  passion,  that  not  faintly 
indicated  the  day-spring  of  that  absorbing  sentiment 
which  was  afterward  destined  to  overwhelm  and  subdue 
his  nature  quite  for  Alice  W n. 

I  even  think  that  sentimentally  I  am  disposed  to  har- 
mony. But  organically  I  am  incapable  of  a  tune.  I 
have  been  practising  "  God  save  the  King''''  all  my  life; 
whistling  and  humming  it  over  to  myself  in  solitary  cor- 
ners ;  and  am  not  yet  arrived,  they  tell  me,  within  many 
quavers  of  it.  Yet  hath  the  loyalty  of  Elia  never  been 
impeached. 

I  am  not  without  suspicion,  that  I  have  an  undevel- 
oped faculty  of  music  within  me.  For  thrumming,  in 
my  mild  way,  on  my  friend  A.'s  piano,  the  other  morn- 
ing, while  he  was  engaged  in  an  adjoining  parlor — on 
his  return  he  was  pleased  to  say,  ^'•he  thought  it  could 
not  he  the  maid  !  "  On  his  first  surprise  at  hearing  the 
keys  touched  in  somewhat  an  airy  and  masterful  way, 


A   CHAPTER  ON   EARS.  65 

not  dreaming  of  me,  his  suspicions  had  lighted  on  Jenny. 
But  a  grace,  snatched  from  a  superior  refinement,  soon 
convinced  him  that  some  being — technically  perhaps  de- 
ficient, but  higher  informed  from  a  principle  common  to 
all  the  fine  arts — had  swayed  the  keys  to  a  mood  which 
Jenny,  with  all  her  (less  cultivated)  enthusiasm,  could 
never  have  elicited  from  them.  I  mention  this  as  a  proof 
of  my  friend's  penetration,  and  not  with  any  view  of 
disparaging  Jenny. 

Scientifically  I  could  never  be  made  to  understand 
(yet  have  I  taken  some  pains)  what  a  note  in  music  is ; 
or  how  one  note  should  differ  from  another.  Much  less 
in  voices  can  I  distinguish  a  soprano  from  a  tenor.  Only 
sometimes  the  thorough-bass  I  contrive  to  guess  at,  from 
its  being  supereminently  harsh  and  disagreeable.  I  trem- 
ble, however,  for  my  misapplication  of  the  simplest  terms 
of  tliat  which  I  disclaim.  While  I  profess  my  ignorance, 
I  scarce  know  what  to  %ay  I  am  ignorant  of.  I  hate, 
perhaps,  by  misnomers.  Sostenuto  and  adagio  stand  in 
the  like  relation  of  obscurity  to  me ;  and  Sol^  Fa^  Mi,  Ee, 
is  as  conjuring  as  Baralipton. 

It  is  hard  to  stand  alone  in  an  age  like  this — (consti- 
tuted to  the  quick  and  critical  perception  of  all  harmoni- 
ous combinations,  I  verily  believe,  beyond  all  preceding 
ages,  since  Jubal  stumbled  upon  the  gamut) — to  remain, 
as  it  were,  singly  unimpressible  to  the  magic  influences 
of  an  art  which  is  said  to  have  such  an  especial  stroke 
at  soothing,  elevating,'  and  refining  the  passions. — Yet, 
rather  than  break  the  candid  current  of  my  confessions, 
I  must  avow  to  you  that  I  have  received  a  great  deal 
more  pain  than  pleasure  from  this  so  cried-up  faculty. 

I  am  constitutionally  susceptible  of  noises.  A  car- 
penter's hammer,  in  a  warm  summer  noon,  will  fret  me 


(}Q  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

into  more  than  midsummer  madness.  But  those  uncon- 
nected, unset  sounds  are  nothing  to  the  measured  malice 
of  music.  The  ear  is  passive  to  those  single  strokes; 
willingly  enduring  stripes  while  it  hath  no  task  to  con. 
To  music  it  cannot  be  passive.  It  will  strive—  mine  at 
least  will — 'spite  of  its  inaptitude,  to  thrid  the  maze ; 
like  an  unskilled  eye  painfully  poring  upon  hieroglyphics. 
I  have  sat  through  an  Italian  Opera,  till,  for  sheer  pain, 
and  inexplicable  anguish,  I  have  rushed  out  into  the 
noisiest  places  of  the  crowded  streets,  to  solace  myself 
with  sounds  which  I  was  not  obliged  to  follow,  and  get 
rid  of  the  distracting  torment  of  endless,  fruitless,  barren 
attention !  I  take  refuge  in  the  unpretending  assemblage 
of  honest  common-life  sounds  ;  and  the  purgatory  of  the 
Enraged  Musician  becomes  my  paradise. 

I  have  sat  at  an  Oratorio  (that  profanation  of  the  pur- 
poses of  the  cheerful  playhouse)  watching  the  faces  of 
the  auditory  in  the  pit  (what  a  contrast  to  Hogarth's 
Laughing  Audience!),  immovable,  or  affecting  some 
faint  emotion,  till  (as  some  have  said,  that  our  occupa- 
tions in  the  next  world  will  be  but  a  shadow  of  what 
delighted  us  in  this)  I  have  imagined  myself  in  some 
cold  Theatre  in  Hades,  where  some  of  the  forms  of  the 
earthly  one  should  be  kept  up,  with  none  of  the  enjoy- 
ment; or  like  that 

— "  Party  in  a  parlor 

All  silent  and  ail  damned." 

Above  all,  these  insufferable  concertos,  and  pieces  of 
music,  as  they  are  called,  do  plague  and  embitter  my  ap- 
prehension. Words  are  something ;  but  to  be  exposed 
to  an  endless  battery  of  mere  sounds ;  to  be  long  a-dy- 
ing,  to  lie  stretched  upon  a  rack  of  roses ;  to  keep  up  Ian- 


A   CHAPTER  ON   EARS.  67 

guor  by  unintermitted  effort ;  to  pile  honey  upon  sugar, 
and  sugar  upon  honey,  to  an  interminable,  tedious  sweet- 
ness ;  to  fill  up  sound  with  feeling,  and  strain  ideas  to 
keep  pace  with  it;  to  gaze  on  empty  frames,  and  be 
forced  to  make  the  pictures  for  yourself;  to  read  a  book, 
all  stops,  and  be  obliged  to  supply  the  verbal  matter ;  to 
invent  extempore  tragedies  to  answer  to  the  vague  gest- 
ures of  an  inexplicable,  rambling  mime — these  are  faint 
shadows  of  what  I  have  undergone  from  a  series  of  the 
ablest-executed  pieces  of  this  empty  instrumental  mmic. 
I  deny  not  that,  in  the  opening  of  a  concert,  1  have 
experienced  something  vastly  lulling  and  agreeable; 
afterward  followeth  the  languor  and  the  oppression. 
Like  that  disappointing  book  in  Patmos;  or,  like  the 
comings  on  of  melancholy,  described  by  Burton,  doth 
Music  make  her  first  insinuating  approaches :  "  Most 
pleasant  it  is  to  such  as  are  melancholy  given  to  walk 
alone  in  some  solitary  grove,  betwixt  wood  and  water, 
by  some  brook-side,  and  to  meditate  upon  some  delight- 
some and  pleasant  subject,  which  shall  affect  him  most, 
amabilis  insania,  and  mentis  gratissimus  error*  A  most 
incomparable  delight  to  build  castles  in  the  air,  to  go 
smiling  to  themselves,  acting  an  infinite  variety  of  parts, 
which  they  suppose,  and  strongly  imagine,  they  act,  or 
that  they  see  done.  So  delightsome  these  toys  at  first, 
they  could  spend  whole  days  and  nights  without  sleep, 
even  whole  years  in  such  contemplations  and  fantastical 
meditations,  which  are  like  so  many  dreams,  and  will 
hardly  be  drawn  from  them — winding  and  unwinding 
themselves  as  so  many  clocks,  and  still  pleasing  their 
humors  until  at  last  the  scene  turns  upon  a  sudden,  and 
they  being  now  habitated  to  such  meditations  and  soli- 
tary places,  can  endure  no  company,  can  think  of  nothing 


68  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

but  harsh  and  distasteful  subjects.  Fear,  sorrow,  suspi- 
cion, subrusticus  pudor^  discontent,  cares,  and  weariness 
of  life,  surprise  them  on  a  sudden,  and  they  can  think 
of  nothing  else ;  continually  suspecting,  no  sooner  are 
their  eyes  open,  but  this  infernal  plague  of  melancholy 
seizeth  on  them  and  terrifies  their  souls,  representing 
some  dismal  object  to  their  minds;  which  now,  by  no 
means,  no  labor,  no  persuasions,  they  can  avoid,  they 
cannot  be  rid  of,  they  cannot  resist.'^ 

Something  like  this  "  scene  tuening  "  I  have  experi- 
enced at  the  evening-parties  at  the  house  of  my  good 

Catholic  friend  No^ ,  who,  by  the  aid  of  a  capital 

organ,  himself  the  most  finished  of  players,  converts  his 
drawing-room  into  a  chapel,  his  week-days  into  Sun- 
days, and  these  latter  into  minor  heaven.* 

"When  my  friend  commences  upon  one  of  those  sol- 
emn anthems,  which  peradventure  struck  upon  my  heed- 
less ear,  rambling  in  the  side  aisles  of  the  dim  Abbey, 
some  five-and-tliirty  years  since,  waking  a  new  sense, 
and  putting  a  soul  of  old  religion  into  my  young  appre- 
hension— (whether  it  be  that^  in  which  the  Psalmist, 
weary  of  the  persecutions  of  bad  men,  wisheth  to  him- 
self dove's  wings;  or  that  other ^  which,  with  a  like 
measure  of  sobriety  and  pathos,  inquireth  by  what 
means  the  young  man  shall  best  cleanse  his  mind) — a 
holy  calm  pervadeth  me.     I  am  for  the  time 

— "  rapt  above  earth, 
And  possess  joys  not  promised  at  my  birth." 

But  when  this  master  of  the  spell,  not  content  to 
have  laid  a  soul  prostrate,  goes  on,  in  his  power,  to  in- 

*  "  I  have  been  there,  and  still  would  go  ; 

'Tis  like  a  little  heaven  below." — Dr.  Watts. 


ALL-FOOLS'-DAY.  69 

flict  more  bliss  than  lies  in  her  capacity  to  receive,  im- 
patient to  overcome  her  '^  earthly  "  with  his  "  heavenly  " 
— still  pouring  in,  for  protracted  hours,  fresh  waves  and 
fresh  from  the  sea  of  sound,  or  from  that  inexhausted 
German  ocean,  above  which,  in  triumphant  progress, 
dolphin-seated,  ride  those  Arions  Haydn  and  Mozart^ 
with  their  attendant  Tritons,  Bac\  Beethoven,  and  a 
countless  tribe,  whom  to  attempt  to  reckon  up  would 
but  plunge  me  again  in  the  deeps — I  stagger  under  the 
weight  of  harmony,  reeling  to  and  fro  at  my  wits'  end ; 
clouds,  as  of  frankincense,  oppress  me — priests,  altars, 
censers,  dazzle  before  me — the  genius  of  his  religion 
hath  me  in  her  toils — a  shadowy  triple  tiara  invests  the 
brow  of  my  friend,  late  so  naked,  so  ingenuous — he  is 
Pope,  and  by  him  sits,  like  as  in  the  anomaly  of  dreams, 
a  she-Pope,  too,  tri-coroneted  like  himself ! — I  am  con- 
verted, and  yet  a  Protestant ;  at  once  malleus  heretico- 
rum,  and  myself  grand  heresiarch:  or  three  heresies 
centre  in  my  person :  I  am  Marcion,  Ebion,  and  Oerin- 
thus — Gog  and  Magog — what  not  ? — till  the  coming  in 
of  the  friendly  supper-tray  dissipates  the  figment,  and  a 
draught  of  true  Lutheran  beer  (in  which  chiefly  my 
friend  shows  himself  no  bigot)  at  once  reconciles  me  to 
the  rationalities  of  a  purer  faith,  and  restores  to  me  the 
genuine,  unterrifying  aspects  of  my  pleasant  -  counte- 
nanced host  and  hostess. 


ALL-FOOLS'-DAY. 

The  compliments  of  the  season  to  my  worthy  masters, 
and  a  merry  first  of  April  to  us  all  I 

Many  happy  returns  of  this  day  to  you — and  you — 


70  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

and  you^  Sir — nay,  never  frown,  man,  nor  put  a  long  face 
upon  the  matter.  Do  not  we  know  one  another?  what 
need  of  ceremony  among  friends  ?  we  have  all  a  touch  of 
that  same — you  understand  me — a  speck  of  the  motley. 
Beshrew  the  man  who  on  such  a  day  as  this,  the  general 
festival^  should  affect  to  stand  aloof.  I  am  none  of  those 
sneakers.  I  am  free  of  the  corporation,  and  care  not 
who  knows  it.  He  that  meets  me  in  the  forest  to-day, 
shall  meet  with  no  wiseacre,  I  can  tell  him.  Stultus  sum. 
Translate  me  that,  and  take  the  meaning  of  it  to  yourself 
for  your  pains.  What !  man,  we  have  four  quarters  of 
the  globe  on  our  side,  at  the  least  computation. 

Fill  us  a  cup  of  that  sparkling  gooseberry — we  will 
drink  no  wise,  melancholy,  politic  port  on  this  day — and 
let  us  troll  the  catch  of  Amiens — due  ad  me — due  ad  me 

— how  goes  it  ? — 

"  Here  shall  he  see 
Gross  fools  as  he." 
Now  would  I  give  a  trifle  to  know  historically  and 
authentically  who  was  the  greatest  fool  that  ever  lived. 
I  would  certainly  give  him  a  bumper.  Marry,  of  the 
present  breed,  I  think  I  could  without  much  difficulty 
name  you  the  party. 

Remove  your  cap  a  little  farther,  if  you  please :  it 
hides  my  bauble.  And  now  each  man  bestride  his  hob- 
by, and  dust  away  his  bells  to  what  tune  he  pleases.  I 
will  give  you,  for  my  part, 

— "  The  crazy  old  church-clock, 
And  the  bewildered  chimes." 

Good  Master  Empedocles,  you  are  welcome.  It  is 
long  since  you  went  a  salamander-gathering  down  Etna. 
Worse  than  samphire-picking  by  some  odds.  'Tis  a  mer- 
cy your  worship  did  not  singe  your  mustaobios. 


ALL-FOOLS'-DAY.  71 

Ha !  Oleombrotus  I  and  what  salads  in  faith  did  you 
light  upon  at  the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean?  You 
were  founder,  I  take  it,  of  the  disinterested  sect  of  the 
Calenturists. 

Gebir,  ray  old  freemason,  and  prince  of  plasterers  at 
Babel,  bring  in  your  trowel,  most  Ancient  Grand!  You 
have  claim  to  a  seat  here  at  my  right  hand,  as  patron  of 
the  stammerers.  You  left  your  work,  if  I  remember 
Herodotus  correctly,  at  eight  hundred  million  toises,  or 
thereabout,  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Bless  us,  what  a 
long  bell  you  must  have  pulled,  to  call  your  top  work- 
men to  their  nuncheon  on  the  low  grounds  of  Shinar ! 
Or,  did  you  send  up  your  garlic  and  onions  by  a  rocket? 
I  am  a  rogue  if  I  am  not  ashamed  to  show  you  our  Mon- 
ument on  Fish  Street  Hill,  after  your  altitudes.  Yet  we 
think  it  somewhat. 

What,  the  magnanimous  Alexander  in  tears? — cry 
baby,  put  its  finger  in  its  eye,  it  shall  have  another  globe, 
round  as  an  orange,  pretty  moppet! 

Mister  Adams 'odso,  I  honor  your  coat — pray  do 

us  the  favor  to  read  to  us  that  sermon,  which  you  lent  to 
Mistress  Slipslop — the  twenty-and-second  in  your  port- 
manteau there — on  Female  Incontinence — the  same — it 
will  come  in  most  irrelevantly  and  impertinently  season- 
able to  the  time  of  the  day.  * 

Good  Master  Eaymund  Lully,  you  look  wise.  Pray 
correct  that  error. — 

Duns,  spare  your  definitions.  I  must  fine  you  a  bump- 
er, or  a  paradox.  We  will  have  nothing  said  or  done 
syllogistically  this  day.  Remove  those  logical  forms, 
waiter,  that  no  gentleman  break  the  tender  shins  of  his 
apprehension  stumbling  across  them. 

Master  Stephen,  you  are  late. — Ha!  Cokes,  is  it  you? 


72  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

— Agueoheek,  my  dear  knight,  let  me  pay  my  devoir  to 
you. — Master  Shallow,  your  worship's  poor  servant  to 
command. — Master  Silence,  I  will  use  few  words  with 
you. — Slender,  it  shall  go  hard  if  I  edge  not  yon  in  some- 
where.— You  six  will  engross  all  the  poor  wit  of  the  com- 
pany to-day. — I  know  it,  I  know  it. 

Ha !  honest  B ,  my  fine  old  Librarian  of  Ludgate, 

time  out  of  mind,  art  thou  here  again  ?  Bless  my  doub- 
let, it  is  not  over-new ;  threadbare  as  thy  stories — what 
dost  thou  flitting  about  the  world  at  this  rate? — Thy  cus- 
tomers are  extinct,  defunct,  bed-rid,  have  ceased  to  read 
long  ago. — Thou  goest  still  among  them,  seeing  if,  per- 
adventure,  thou  canst  hawk  a  volume  or  two. — Good 
Granville  S ,  thy  last  patron,  is  flown. 

"  King  Pandion,  be  is  dead, 
All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead." — 

Nevertheless,  noble  R ,  come  in,  and  take  your 

seat  here,  between  Armado  and  Quisada;  for  in  true 
courtesy,  in  gravity,  in  fantastic  smiling  to  thyself,  in 
courteous  smiling  upon  others,  in  the  goodly  ornature  of 
well-appareled  speech,  and  the  commendation  of  wise  sen- 
tences, thou  art  nothing  inferior  to  those  accomplished 
Dons  of  Spain.  The  spirit  of  chivalry  forsake  me  for- 
ever, when  I  forget  thy  singing  the  song  of  Macheath, 
which  declares  that  he  might  be  Tiappy  with  either,  situ- 
ated between  those  two  ancient  spinsters — when  I  for- 
get the  inimitable  formal  love  which  thou  didst  make, 
turning  now  to  the  one,  and  now  to  the  other,  with  that 
Malvolian  smile — as  if  Cervantes,  not  Gay,  had  written 
it  for  his  hero ;  and  as  if  thousands  of  periods  must  re- 
volve, before  the  mirror  of  courtesy  could  have  given  his 
invidious  preference  between  a  pair  of  so  goodly-proper- 
tied and  meritorious-equal  damsels.  ... 


ALL-FOOLS'-DAY.  73 

To  descend  from  these  altitudes,  and  not  to  protract 
our  Fools'  Banquet  beyond  its  appropriate  day — for  I 
fear  the  Second  of  April  is  not  many  hours  distant — in 
sober  verity  I  will  confess  a  truth  to  thee,  reader.  I  love 
a  Fool — as  naturally,  as  if  I  were  of  kith  and  kin  to  him. 
When  a  child,  with  childlike  apprehensions,  that  dived 
not  below  the  surface  of  the  matter,  I  read  those  Para- 
lies — not  guessing  at  the  involved  wisdom — I  had  more 
yearnings  toward  that  simple  architect,  that  built  his 
house  upon  the  sand,  than  I  entertained  for  his  more 
cautious  neighbor :  I  grudged  at  the  hard  censure  pro- 
nounced upon  the  quiet  soul  that  kept  his  talent ;  and — 
prizing  their  simplicity  beyond  the  more  provident,  and, 
to  my  apprehension,  somewhat  unfeminine  wariness  of 
their  competitors — I  felt  a  kindliness,  that  almost  amount- 
ed to  a  tend7'e,  for  those  five  thoughtless  virgins. — I  have 
never  made  an  acquaintance  since,  that  lasted :  or  a  friend- 
ship, that  answered ;  with  any  that  had  not  some  tinct- 
ure of  the  absurd  in  their  characters.  I  venerate  an 
honest  obliquity  of  understanding.  The  more  laughable 
blunders  a  man  shall  commit  in  your  company,  the  more 
tests  he  giveth  you,  that  he  will  not  betray  or  overreach 
you.  I  love  the  safety,  which  a  palpable  hallucination 
warrants ;  the  security,  which  a  word  out  of  season  rati- 
fies. And  take  my  word  for  this,  reader,  and  say  a  fool 
told  it  you,  if  you  please,  that  he  who  hath  not  a  dram 
of  folly  in  his  mixture,  hath  pounds  of  much  worse  mat- 
ter in  his  composition.  It  is  observed,  that  "  the  fool- 
isher  the  fowl  or  fish — woodcocks — dotterels — cods'- 
heads,  etc. — the  finer  the  flesh  thereof,"  and  what  are 
commonly  the  world's  received  fools,  but  such  whereof 
the  world  is  not  worthy  ?  and  what  have  been  some  of 
the  kindliest  patterns  of  our  species,  but  so  many  darlings 


74  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

of  absurdity,  minions  of  the  goddess,  and  her  white  boys  ? 
— Reader,  if  you  wrest  my  words  beyond  their  fair  con- 
struction, it  is  you  and  not  I,  that  are  the  April  Fool, 


A  QUAKERS'  MEETING. 

"  Still-born  Silence !  thou  that  art 
Flood-gate  of  the  deeper  heart ! 
Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind ! 
Frost  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind ! 
Secrecy's  confidant,  and  He 
Who  makes  religion  mystery ! 
Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue ! 
Leave,  thy  desert  shades  among, 
Reverend  hermits'  hallowed  cells, 
Where  retired  Devotion  dwells ! 
With  thy  enthusiasms  come. 
Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb."* 

Reader,  wouldst  thou  know  what  true  peace  and 
quiet  mean ;  wouldst  thou  find  a  refuge  from  the  noises 
and  clamors  of  the  multitude;  wouldst  thou  enjoy  at 
once  solitude  and  society;  wouldst  thou  possess  the 
depth  of  thine  own  spirit  in  stillness,  without  being  shut 
out  from  the  consolatory  faces  of  thy  species ;  wouldst 
thou  be  alone,  and  yet  accompanied;  solitary,  yet  not 
desolate;  singular,  yet  not  without  some  to  keep  thee 
in  countenance ;  a  unit  in  aggregate ;  a  simple  in  com- 
posite :  come  with  me  into  a  Quakers'  meeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "  before  the  winds 
were  made  ? "  go  not  out  into  the  wilderness ;  descend 

*  From  "Poems  of  all  Sorts,"  by  Richard  Fleckno,  1653. 


A  QUAKERS'   MEETING.  75 

not  into  the  profundities  of  the  earth ;  shut  not  up  thy 
casements,  nor  pour  wax  into  the  little  cells  of  thy  ears, 
with  little-faith  ed,  self -mistrusting  Ulysses. — Retire  with 
me  into  a  Quakers'  meeting. 

For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words,  and  to 
hold  his  peace,  it  is  commendable;  hut  for  a  multitude, 
it  is  great  mastery. 

What  is  the  stillness  of  the  desert  compared  with 
this  place?  what  the  uncommunicating  muteness  of 
fishes? — here  the  goddess  reigns  and  revels. — "Boreas, 
and  Cesias,  and  Argestes  loud,"  do  not  with  their  inter- 
confounding  uproars  more  augment  the  brawl — nor  the 
waves  of  the  blown  Baltic  with  their  clubbed  sounds — 
than  their  opposite  (Silence  her  sacred  self)  is  multiplied 
and  rendered  more  intense  by  numbers,  and  by  sympa- 
thy. She,  too,  hath  her  deeps  that  call  unto  deeps.  Nega- 
tion itself  hath  a  positive  more  and  less ;  and  closed  eyes 
would  seem  to  obscure  the  great  obscurity  of  midnight. 

There  are  wounds  which  an  imperfect  solitude  cannot 
heal.  By  imperfect  I  mean  that  which  a  man  enjoyeth 
by  himself.  The  perfect  is  that  which  he  can  sometimes 
attain  in  crowds,  but  nowhere  so  absolutely  as  in  a 
Quakers'  meeting. — Those  first  hermits  did  certainly  un- 
derstand this  principle  when  they  retired  into  Egyptian 
solitudes,  not  singly,  but  in  shoals,  to  enjoy  one  another's 
want  of  conversation.  The  Carthusian  is  bound  to  his 
brethren  by  this  agreeing  spirit  of  incommunicative- 
ness.  In  secular  occasions,  what  so  pleasant  as  to  be 
reading  a  book  through  a  long,  winter  evening,  with  a 
friend  sitting  by — say  a  wife — he,  or  she,  too  (if  that  be 
probable),  reading  another,  without  interruption  or  oral 
communicaton  ? — can  there  be  no  sympathy  without  the 
gabble  of  words  ? — away  with  this  inhuman,  shy,  single, 


76  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

shade-and-cavem-haunting  solitariness.  Give  me,  Master 
Zimmermann,  a  sympathetic  solitude. 

To  pace  along  in  the  cloisters  or  side-aisles  of  some 
cathedral,  time-stricken — 

"  Or  under  hanging  mountains, 
Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains  " —  ' 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that  which  those 
enjoy  who  come  together  for  the  purposes  of  more  com- 
plete, abstracted  solitude.  This  is  the  loneliness  "  to  be 
felt." — The  Abbey  church  of  "Westminster  hath  nothing 
so  solemn,  so  spirit-soothing,  as  the  naked  walls  and 
benches  of  a  Quakers'  meeting.  Here  are  no  tombs,  no 
inscriptions, 

— "  Sands,  ignoble  things, 
Dropped  from  the  ruined  sides  of  kings  " — 

but  here  is  something  which  throws  Antiquity  herself 
into  the  foreground  —  Silence  —  eldest  of  things — lan- 
guage of  old  Kight — primitive  Discourser — to  which  the 
insolent  decays  of  mouldering  grandeur  have  but  arrived 
by  a  violent,  and,  as  we  may  say,  unnatural  progression. 

"  How  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity ! " 

Nothing  -  plotting,  naught  -  caballing,  unmischievous 
synod!  convocation  without  intrigue!  parliament  with- 
out debate !  what  a  lesson  dost  thou  read  to  council,  and 
to  consistory! — if  my  pen  treat  of  you  lightly — as  haply 
it  will  wander — yet  my  spirit  hath  gravely  felt  the  wis- 
dom of  your  custom,  when  sitting  among  you  in  deepest 
peace,  which  some  out-welling  tears  would  rather  confirm 
than  disturb,  I  have  reverted  to  the  times  of  your  begin- 
nings, and  the  sowings  of  the  seed  by  Fox  and  Dewesbury. 


A   QUAKERS'   MEETING.  77 

I  have  witnessed  that  which  brought  before  my  eyes  your 
heroic  tranquillity,  inflexible  to  the  rude  jests  and  serious 
violences  of  the  insolent  soldiery,  republican  or  royalist, 
sent  to  molest  you — for  ye  sate  betwixt  the  fires  of  two 
persecutions,  the  outcast  and  offscouring  of  church  and 
presbytery. — I  have  seen  the  reeling  sea-ruffian,  who  had 
wandered  into  your  receptacle  with  the  avowed  inten- 
tion of  disturbing  your  quiet,  from  the  very  spirit  of  the 
place  receive  in  a  moment  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit 
among  ye  as  a  lamb  among  lambs.  And  I  remember 
Penn  before  his  accusers,  and  Fox  in  the  bail-dock, 
where  he  was  lifted  up  in  spirit,  as  he  tells  us,  and  '*  the 
judge  and  the  jury  became  as  dead  men  under  his  feet.'* 
Keader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I  would 
recommend  to  you,  above  all  church-narratives,  to  read 
Sewel's  History  of  the  Quakers.  It  is  in  folio,  and  is 
the  abstract  of  the  Journals  of  Fox  and  the  primitive 
Friends.  It  is  far  more  edifying  and  affecting  than  any- 
thing you  will  read  of  Wesley  and  his  colleagues.  Here 
is  nothing  to  stagger  you,  nothing  to  make  you  mistrust, 
no  suspicion  of  alloy,  no  drop  or  dreg  of  the  worldly  or 
ambitious  spirit.  You  will  here  read  the  true  story  of 
that  much-injured,  ridiculed  man  (who,  perhaps,  hath 
been  a  by- word  in  your  mouth) — James  Naylor :  what 
dreadful  sufferings,  with  what  patience,  he  endured, 
even  to  the  boring  through  of  his  tongue  with  red-hot 
irons,  without  a  murmur;  and  with  what  strength  of 
mind,  when  the  delusion  he  had  fallen  into,  which  they 
stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had  given  way  to  clearer 
thoughts,  he  could  renounce  his  error,  in  a  strain  of  the 
beautifullest  humility,  yet  keep  his  first  grounds,  and  be 
a  Quaker  still ! — so  different  from  the  practice  of  your 
common  converts  from  enthusiasm,   who,   when  they 


78  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

apostatize,  apostatize  all,  and  think  they  can  never  get 
far  enough  from  the  society  of  their  former  errors,  even 
to  the  renunciation  of  some  saving  truths,  with  which 
they  had  been  mingled,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  Writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart ;  and 
love  the  early  Quakers. 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in  our  days 
have  kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or  in  what  propor- 
tion they  have  substituted  formality  for  it,  the  Judge  of 
Spirits  can  alone  determine.  I  have  seen  faces  in  their 
assemblies,  upon  which  the  dove  sate  visibly  brooding. 
Others  again  I  have  watched,  when  my  thoughts  should 
have  been  better  engaged,  in  which  I  could  possibly  de- 
tect nothing  but  a  blank  inanity.  But  quiet  was  in  all, 
and  the  disposition  to  unanimity,  and  the  absence  of  the 
fierce  controversial  workings.  If  the  spiritual  preten- 
sions of  the  Quakers  have  abated,  at  least  they  make  few 
pretenses.  Hypocrites  they  certainly  are  not,  in  their 
preaching.  It  is  seldom,  indeed,  that  you  shall  see  one 
get  up  among  them  to  hold  forth.  Only  now  and  then  a 
trembling  femdle,  generally  ancient^  voice  is  heard — you 
cannot  guess  from  what  part  of  the  meeting  it  proceeds 
— with  a  low,  buzzing,  musical  sound,  laying  out  a  few 
words  which  "she  thought  might  suit  the  condition  of 
some  present,"  with  a  quaking  diffidence,  which  leaves 
no  possibility  of  supposing  that  anything  of  female  van- 
ity was  mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were  so  full  of  ten- 
derness, and  a  restraining  modesty.  The  men,  for  what 
I  have  observed,  speak  seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  witnessed  a 
sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It  was  a  man  of  giant 
stature,  who,  as  Wordsworth  phrases  it,  might  have 
danced  "from  head  to  foot  equipt  in  iron  mail."     His 


A   QUAKERS'   MEETING.  79 

frame  was  of  iron,  too.  But  Tie  was  malleable.  I  saw 
him  shake  all  over  with  the  spirit — I  dare  not  say  of  de- 
lusion. The  strivings  of  the  outer  man  were  unuttera- 
ble— ^he  seemed  not  to  speak,  but  to  be  spoken  from.  I 
saw  the  strong  man  bowed  down,  and  his  knees  to  fail — 
his  joints  all  seemed  loosening — it  was  a  figure  to  set  off 
against  Paul  Preaching — the  words  he  uttered  were  few, 
and  sound — he  was  evidently  resisting  his  will — keeping 
down  his  own  word- wisdom  with  more  mighty  effort, 
than  the  world's  orators  strain  for  theirs.  *'  He  had  been 
a  WIT  in  his  youth,"  he  told  us,  with  expressions  of  a  so- 
ber remorse.  And  it  was  not  till  long  after  the  impres- 
sion had  begun  to  wear  away,  that  I  was  enabled,  with 
something  like  a  smile,  to  recall  the  striking  incongruity 
of  the  confession — understanding  the  term  in  its  worldly 
acceptation — with  the  frame  and  physiognomy  of  the 
person  before  me.  His  brow  would  have  scared  away 
the  Levities — the  Jocos  Risus-que — faster  than  the  Loves 
fled  the  face  of  Dis  at  Enna.  By  wit^  even  in  his  youth, 
I  will  be  sworn  he  understood  something  far  within  the 
limits  of  an  allowable  liberty. 

More  frequently  the  meeting  is  broken  up  without  a 
word  having  been  spoken.  But  the  mind  has  been  fed. 
You  go  away  with  a  sermon  not  made  with  hands.  You 
have  been  in  the  milder  caverns  of  Trophonius ;  or  as  in 
some  den,  where  that  fiercest  and  savagest  of  all  wild 
creatures,  the  Tongue,  that  unruly  member,  has  strange- 
ly lain  tied  up  and  caprtive.  You  have  bathed  with  still- 
ness. Oh,  when  the  spirit  is  sore  fretted,  even  tired  to 
sickness  of  the  janglings,  the  nonsense-noises  of  the 
world,  what  a  balm  and  a  solace  it  is,  to  go  and  seat 
yourself,  for  a  quiet  half-hour,  upon  some  undisputed 
corner  of  a  bench,  among  the  gentle  Quakers! 


80  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,  present  a  uniform- 
ity, tranquil  and  herd-like — as  in  the  pasture — "forty 
feeding  like  one." — 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapable  of  re- 
ceiving a  soil ;  and  cleanliness  in  them  to  be  something 
more  than  the  absence  of  its  contrary.  Every  Quakeress 
is  a  lily;  and  when  they  come  up  in  bands  to  their 
Whitsun-conferences,  whitening  the  easterly  streets  of 
tlie  metropolis,  from  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
they  show  like  troops  of  the  Shining  Ones. 


THE  OLD  Al^D  THE  NEW   SCHOOLMASTER. 

My  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory  and  im- 
methodical.  Odd,  out-of-the-way,  old  English  plays,  and 
treatises,  have  supplied  me  with  most  of  my  notions,  and 
ways  of  feeling.  In  everything  that  relates  to  science,  I 
am  a  whole  Encyclopaadia  behind  the  rest  of  the  world. 
I  should  have  scarcely  cut  a  figure  among  the  franklins, 
or  country  gentlemen,  in  King  John's  days.  I  know  less 
geography  than  a  schoolboy  of  six  weeks'  standing.  To 
me  a  map  of  old  Ortelius  is  as  authentic  as  Arrowsmith. 
I  do  not  know  whereabout  Africa  merges  into  Asia; 
whether  Ethiopia  lie  in  one  or  other,  of  those  great  divis- 
ions; nor  can  form  the  remotest  conjecture  of  the  posi- 
tion of  "New  South  Wales,  or  Yan  Diemen's  Land.  Yet 
do  I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very  dear  friend  in 
the  first-named  of  these  two  TerrsB  Incognitse.  I  have 
no  astronomy.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  the 
Bear,  or  Charles's  Wain;  the  place  of  any  star;  or  the 
name  of  any  of  them  at  sight.    I  guess  at  Venus  only  by 


THE  OLD  AND  TEE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.     81 

her  brightness — and  if  the  sun  on  some  portentous  morn 
were  to  make  his  first  appearance  in  the  West,  I  verily 
believe,  that,  while  all  the  world  were  gasping  in  appre- 
hension about  me,  I  alone  should  staud  unterrified,  from 
sheer  incuriosity  and  want  of  observation.  Of  history 
and  chronology  I  possess  some  vague  points,  such  as  one 
cannot  help  picking  up  in  the  course  of  miscellaneous 
study;  but  I  never  deliberately  sat  down  to  a  chronicle, 
even  of  ray  own  country.  I  have  most  dim  apprehen- 
sions of  the  four  great  monarchies ;  and  sometimes  the 
Assyrian,  sometimes  the  Persian,  floats  as  first^  in  my 
fancy.  I  make  the  widest  conjectures  concerning  Egypt, 
and  her  shepherd  kings.  My  friend  if.,  with  great  pains- 
taking, got  me  to  think  I  understood  the  first  proposition 
in  Euclid,  but  gave  me  over  in  despair  at  the  second.  I 
am  entirely  unacquainted  with  the  modern  languages; 
and,  like  a  better  man  than  myself,  have  "small  Latin 
and  less  Greek."  I  am  a  stranger  to  the  shapes  and 
texture  of  the  commonest  trees,  herbs,  flowers — not  from 
the  circumstance  of  my  being  town-born — for  I  should 
have  brought  the  same  inobservant  spirit  into  the  world 
with  me,  had  I  first  seen  it  "on  Devon's  leafy  shores  " — 
and  am  no  less  at  a  loss  among  purely  town-objects, 
tools,  engines,  mechanic  processes.  ISTot  that  I  affect 
ignorance — but  my  head  has  not  many  mansions,  nor 
spacious ;  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  fill  it  with  such 
cabinet  curiosities  as  it  can  hold  without  aching.  I 
sometimes  wonder  how  I  have  passed  my  probation 
with  so  little  discredit  in  the  world,  as  I  have  done,  upon 
so  meagre  a  stock.  But  the  fact  is,  a  man  may  do  very 
well  with  a  very  little  knowledge,  and  scarce  be  found 
out,  in  mixed  company;  everybody  is  so  much  more 
ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to  call  for  a  display  of 


82  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

your  acquisitions.  But  in  a  tete-d-tete  there  is  no  shuf- 
fling. The  truth  will  out.  There  is  nothing  which  I 
dread  so  much  as  the  being  left  alone  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  with  a  sensible,  well-informed  man,  that  does  not 
know  me.    I  ktely  got  into  a  dilemma  of  this  sort. 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishopsgate  and 
Shackle  well,  the  coach  stopped  to  take  up  a  staid-looking 
gentleman,  about  the  wrong  side  of  thirty,  who  was 
giving  his  parting  directions  (while  the  steps  were  ad- 
justing), in  a  tone  of  mild  authority,  to  a  tall  youth,  who 
seemed  to  be  neither  his  clerk,  his  son,  nor  his  servant, 
but  something  partaking  of  all  three.  The  youth  was 
dismissed,  and  we  drove  on.  As  we  were  the  sole  pas- 
sengers, he  naturally  enough  addressed  his  conversation 
to  me ;  and  we  discussed  the  merits  of  the  fare,  the  ci- 
vility and  punctuality  of  the  driver ;  the  circumstance  of 
an  opposition  coach  having  been  lately  set  up,  with  the 
probabilities  of  its  success — to  all  which  I  was  enabled  to 
return  pretty  satisfactory  answers,  having  been  drilled 
into  this  kind  of  etiquette  by  some  years'  daily  practice 
of  riding  to  and  fro  in  the  stage  aforesaid — when  he  sud- 
denly alarmed  me  by  a  startling  question,  whether  I  had 
seen  the  show  of  prize  cattle  that  morning  in  Smithfield? 
Now,  as  I  had  not  seen  it,  and  do  not  greatly  care  for 
such  sort  of  exhibitions,  I  was  obliged  to  return  a  cold 
negative.  He  seemed  a  little  mortified,  as  well  as  aston- 
ished, at  my  declaration,  as  (it  appeared)  he  was  just  come 
fresh  from  the  sight,  and  doubtless  had  hoped  to  com- 
pare notes  on  the  subject.  However,  he  assured  me  that 
I  had  lost  a  fine  treat,  as  it  far  exceeded  the  show  of  last 
year.  We  were  now  approaching  Norton  Folgate,  when 
the  sight  of  some  shop-goods  ticJceted  freshened  him  up 
into  a  dissertation  upon  the  cheapness  of  cottons  this 


THE  OLD   AND   THE   NEW   SCHOOLMASTER.    83 

spring.  I  was  now  a  little  in  heart,  as  the  nature  of  my 
morning  avocations  had  brought  me  into  some  sort  of 
familiarity  with  the  raw  material ;  and  I  was  surprised 
to  find  how  eloquent  I  was  becoming  on  the  state  of  the 
India  market— when,  presently,  he  dashed  my  incipient 
vanity  to  the  earth  at  once,  by  inquiring  whether  I  had 
ever  made  any  calculation  as  to  the  value  of  the  rental 
of  all  the  retail  shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked  of  me, 
what  song  the  Siren  sang,  or  what  name  Achilles  as- 
sumed when  he  hid  himself  among  women,  I  might,  with 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  have  hazarded  a  "  wide  solution."  * 
My  companion  saw  my  embarrassment,  and,  the  alms- 
houses beyond  Shoreditch  just  coming  in  view,  with 
great  good-nature  and  dexterity,  shifted  his  conversation 
to  the  subject  of  public  charities ;  which  led  to  the  com- 
parative merits  of  provision  for  the  poor  in  past  and 
present  times,  with  observations  on  the  old  monastic 
institutions,  and  charitable  orders;  but,  finding  me 
rather  dimly  impressed  with  some  glimmering  notions 
from  old  poetic  associations,  than  strongly  fortified  with 
any  speculations  reducible  to  calculation  on  the  subject, 
he  gave  the  matter  up;  and,  the  country  beginning  to 
open  more  and  more  upon  us,  as  we  approached  the 
turnpike  at  Kingsland  (the  destined  termination  of  his 
journey),  he  put  a  home-thrust  upon  me,  in  the  most 
unfortunate  position  he  could  have  chosen,  by  advancing 
some  queries  relative  to  the  North-Pole  Expedition. 
While  I  was  muttering  out  something  about  the  pano- 
rama of  those  strange  regions  (which  I  had  actually  seen), 
by  way  of  parrying  the  question,  the  coach  stopping  re- 
lieved me  from  any  further  apprehensions.  My  com- 
panion getting  out,  left  me  in  the  comfortable  possession 
*  Urn  Burial. 


84  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

of  my  ignorance ;  and  T  heard  him,  as  he  went  off,  put- 
ting questions  to  an  outside  passenger,  who  had  alighted 
with  him,  regarding  an  epidemic  disorder,  that  had  heen 
rife  about  Dalston,  and  which  my  friend  assured  him  had 
gone  through  five  or  six  schools  in  that  neighborhood. 
The  truth  now  flashed  upon  me,  that  my  companion  was 
a  schoolmaster ;  and  that  the  youth,  whom  he  had  parted 
from  at  our  first  acquaintance,  must  have  been  one  of 
the  bigger  boys,  or  the  usher.  He  was  evidently  a  kind- 
hearted  man,  who  did  not  seem  so  much  desirous  of  pro- 
voking discussion  by  the  questions  which  he  put,  as  of 
obtaining  information  at  any  rate.  It  did  not  appear 
that  he  took  any  interest,  either,  in  such  kind  of  inqui- 
ries, for  their  own  sake ;  but  that  he  was  in  some  way 
bound  to  seek  for  knowledge.  A  greenish-colored  coat, 
which  he  had  on,  forbade  me  to  surmise  that  he  was  a 
clergyman.  The  adventure  gave  birth  to  some  reflections 
on  the  difference  between  persons  of  his  profession  in 
past  and  present  times. 

Rest  to  the  souls  of  those  fine  old  pedagogues ;  the 
breed,  long  since  extinct,  of  the  Lilys  and  the  Linacres : 
who,  believing  that  all  learning  was  contained  in  the 
languages  which  they  taught,  and  despising  every  other 
acquirement  as  superficial  and  useless,  came  to  their 
task  as  to  a  sport !  Passing  from  infancy  to  age,  they 
dreamed  away  all  their  days  as  in  a  grammar-school. 
Eevolving  in  a  perpetual  cycle  of  declensions,  conjuga- 
tions, syntaxes,  and  prosodies ;  renewing  constantly  the 
occupations  which  had  charmed  their  studious  child- 
hood ;  rehearsing  continually  the  part  of  the  past ;  life 
must  have  slipped  from  them  at  last  like  one  day.  They 
were  always  in  their  first  garden,  reaping  harvests  of 
their  golden  time,  among  their  FloH  and  their  Spicu 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.    85 

legia ;  in  Arcadia  still,  but  kings  !  the  ferule  of  their 
sway  not  much  harsher,  but  of  like  dignity  with  that 
mild  sceptre  attributed  to  King  Basileus ;  the  Greek  and 
Latin,  their  stately  Pamela  and  their  Philoclea ;  with  the 
occasional  duncery  of  some  untoward  tyro,  serving  for 
a  refreshing  interlude  of  a  Mopsa  or  a  clown  Damoetas  ! 

"With  what  a  savor  doth  the  Preface  to  Oolet's,  or 
(as  it  is  sometimes  called)  Paul's  Accidence,  set  forth  I 
*'  To  exhort  every  man  to  the  learning  of  grammar,  that 
intendeth  to  attain  the  understanding  of  the  tongues, 
wherein  is  contained  a  great  treasury  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge,  it  would  seem  but  vain  and  lost  labor ;  for 
so  much  as  it  is  known,  that  nothing  can  surely  be  ended 
whose  beginning  is  either  feeble  or  faulty ;  and  no  build- 
ing be  perfect  whereas  the  foundation  and  groundwork 
is  ready  to  fall,  and  unable  to  hold  the  burden  of  the 
frame."  How  well  doth  this  stately  preamble  (compara- 
ble to  those  which  Milton  commendeth  as  "  having  been 
the  usage  to  prefix  to  some  solemn  law,  then  first  promul- 
gated by  Solon  or  Lycurgus")  correspond  with  and  illus- 
trate that  pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed  in  a  suc- 
ceeding clause,  which  would  fence  about  grammar-rules 
with  the  severity  of  faith  articles ! — "  as  for  the  diversity 
of  grammars,  it  is  well  profitably  taken  away  by  the 
Kings  Majesties  wisdom,  who  foreseeing  the  inconveni- 
ence, and  favourably  providing  the  remedie,  caused  one 
kind  of  grammar  by  sundry  learned  men  to  be  diligently 
drawn,  and  so  to  be  set  out,  only  everywhere  to  be 
taught,  for  the  use  of  learners,  and 'for  the  hurt  in 
changing  of  schoolmaisters."  What  a  gu6to  in  that 
which  follows :  *'  wherein  it  is  profitable  that  he  [the  pu- 
pil] can  orderly  decline  his  noun,  and  his  verb."  His  noun ! 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast;  and  the  least 


86  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

concern  of  a  teacher  in  the  present  day  is  to  inculcate 
grammar-rules. 

The  modern  schoolmaster  is  expected  to  know  a  little 
of  everything,  hecause  his  pupil  is  required  not  to  be  en- 
tirely ignorant  of  anything.  He  must  be  superficially, 
if  I  may  so  say,  omniscient.  He  is  to  know  something 
of  pneumatics  ;  of  chemistry ;  of  whatever  is  curious,  or 
proper  to  excite  the  attention  of  the  youthful  mind ;  an 
insight  into  mechanics  is  desirable,  with  a  touch  of  sta- 
tistics; the  quality  of  soils,  etc.,  botany,  the  constitution 
of  his  country,  cum  multis  aliis.  You  may  get  a  notion 
of  some  part  of  his  expected  duties  by  consulting  the 
famous  Tractate  on  Education  addressed  to  Mr.  Hartlib. 

All  these  things — these,  or  the  desire  of  them — he  is 
expected  to  instill,  not  by  set  lessons  from  professors, 
which  he  may  charge  in  the  bill,  but  at  school  intervals, 
as  he  walks  the  streets,  or  saunters  through  green  fields 
(those  natural  instructors),  with  his  pupils.  The  least 
part  of  what  is  expected  from  him,  is  to  be  done  in 
school-hours.  He  must  insinuate  knowledge  at  the 
mollia  tempora  fandi.  He  must  seize  every  occasion — 
the  season  of  the  year ;  the  time  of  the  day  ;  a  passing 
cloud ;  a  rainbow ;  a  wagon  of  hay ;  a  regiment  of  sol- 
diers going  by — to  inculcate  something  useful.  He  can 
receive  no  pleasure  from  a  casual  glimpse  of  Nature,  but 
must  catch  at  it  as  an  object  of  instruction.  He  must 
interpret  beauty  into  the  picturesque.  He  cannot  relish 
a  beggar-man,  or  a  gypsy,  for  thinking  of  the  suitable 
improvement.  Nothing  comes  to  him,  not  spoiled  by 
the  sophisticating  medium  of  moral  uses.  The  Universe 
— that  Great  Book,  as  it  has  been  called — is  to  him  in- 
deed, to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  book  out  of  which 
he  is  doomed  to  read  tedious  homilies  to  distasting 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.    87 

schoolboys.  Vacations  themselves  are  none  to  him,  he 
is  only  rather  worse  off  than  before ;  for  commonly  he 
has  some  intrusive  upper  boy  fastened  upon  him  at  such 
times ;  some  cadet  of  a  great  family ;  some  neglected 
lump  of  nobility,  or  gentry ;  that  he  must  drag  after  hira 
to  the  play,  to  the  Panorama,  to  Mr,  Bartley^s  Orrery, 
to  the  Panopticon,  or  into  the  country,  to  a  friend's 
house,  or  his  favorite  watering-place.  Wherever  he 
goes,  this  uneasy  shadow  attends  him.  A  boy  is  at  Ivis 
board,  and  in  his  path,  and  in  all  his  movements.  He  is 
boy-rid,  sick  of  perpetual  boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way,  among 
their  mates ;  but  they  are  unwholesome  companions  for 
grown  people.  The  restraint  is  felt  no  less  on  the  one 
side  than  on  the  other.  Even  a  child,  that  "  plaything 
for  an  hour,'*  tires  always.  The  noises  of  children, 
playing  their  own  fancies — as  I  now  hearken  to  them 
by  fits,  sporting  on  the  green  before  my  window,  while 
I  am  engaged  in  these  grave  speculations  at  my  neat 
suburban  retreat  at  Shacklewell — by  distance  made  more 
sweet — inexpressibly  take  from  the  labor  of  my  task. 
It  is  like  writing  to  music.  They  seem  to  modulate  my 
periods.  They  ought  at  least  to  do  so — ^for  in  the  voice 
of  that  tender  age  there  is  a  kind  of  poetry,  far  unlike 
the  harsh  prose  accents  of  man's  conversation.  I  should 
but  spoil  their  sport,  and  diminish  my  own  sympathy 
for  them,  by  mingling  in  their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days  with  a  per- 
son of  very  superior  capacity  to  my  own — not,  if  I  know 
myself  at  all,  from  any  considerations  of  jealousy  or  self- 
comparison,  for  the  occasional  communion  with  such 
minds  has  constituted  the  fortune  and  felicity  of  my  life 
— but  the  habit  of  too  constant  intercourse  with  spirits 


88  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

above  you,  instead  of  raising  yon,  keeps  you  down. 
Too  frequent  doses  of  original  thinking  from  others  re- 
strain what  lesser  portion  of  that  faculty  you  may  pos- 
sess of  your  own.  You  get  entangled  in  another  man's 
mind,  even  as  you  lose  yourself  in  another  man's  grounds. 
You  are  walking  with  a  tall  varlet,  whose  strides  out- 
pace yours  to  lassitude.  The  constant  operation  of  such 
potent  agency  would  reduce  me,  I  am  convinced,  to  im- 
becility. You  may  derive  thoughts  from  others ;  your 
way  of  thinking,  the  mould  in  which  your  thoughts  are 
cast,  must  be  your  own.  Intellect  may  be  imparted,  but 
not  each  man's  intellectual  frame. — 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus  dragged 
upward,  as  little  (or,  rather,  still  less)  is  it  desirable  to 
be  stunted  downward  by  your  associates.  The  trumpet 
does  not  more  stun  you  by  its  loudness  than  a  whisper 
teases  you  by  its  provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the  presence 
of  a  schoolmaster  ?  Because  we  are  conscious  that  he  is 
not  quite  at  his  ease  in  ours.  He  is  awkward  and  out  of 
place  in  the  society  of  his  equals.  He  comes  like  Gulli- 
ver from  among  his  little  people,  and  he  cannot  fit  the 
stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours.  He  cannot  meet 
you  on  the  square.  He  wants  a  point  given  him,  like  an 
indifferent  whist-player.  He  is  so  used  to  teaching  that 
he  wants  to  be  teaching  you.  One  of  these  professors, 
upon  my  complaining  that  these  little  sketches  of  mine 
were  anything  but  methodical,  and  that  I  was  unable  to 
make  them  otherwise,  kindly  offered  to  instruct  me  in 
the  method  by  which  young  gentlemen  in  his  seminary 
were  taught  to  compose  English  themes. — The  jests  of  a 
schoolmaster  are  coarse  or  thin.  They  do  not  tell  out 
of  school.    He  is  under  the  restraint  of  a  formal  or  di- 


THE   OLD  AND   THE  NEW  SCHOOLMASTER.    89 

dactive  hypocrisy  in  company,  as  a  clergyman  is  under  a 
moral  one.  He  can  no  more  let  his  intellect  loose  in  so- 
ciety than  the  other  can  his  inclinations.  He  is  forlorn 
among  his  coevals ;  his  juniors  cannot  be  his  friends. 

"  I  take  blame  to  myself,"  said  a  sensible  man  of  this 
profession,  writing  to  a  friend  respecting  a  youth  who 
had  quitted  his  school  abruptly,  "  that  your  nephew  was 
not  more  attached  to  me.  But  persons  in  my  situation 
are  more  to  be  pitied  than  can  well  be  imagined.  We 
are  surrounded  by  young  and,  consequently,  ardently 
affectionate  hearts,  but  we  can  never  hope  to  share  an 
atom  of  their  affections.  The  relation  of  master  and 
scholar  forbids  this.  '  How  pleasing  this  rnust  'be  to  you^ 
how  I  envy  your  feelings  ! '  my  friends  will  sometimes  say 
to  me,  when  they  see  young  men  whom  I  have  educated 
return,  after  some  years'  absence  from  school,  their  eyes 
shining  with  pleasure  while  they  shake  hands  with  their 
old  master,  bringing  a  present  of  game  to  me  or  a  toy  to 
my  wife,  and  thanking  me  in  the  warmest  terms  for  my 
care  of  their  education.  A  holiday  is  begged  for  the 
boys ;  the  house  is  a  scene  of  happiness ;  I,  only,  am 
sad  at  heart.  —  This  fine-spirited  and  warm-hearted 
youth,  who  fancies  he  repays  his  master  with  gratitude 
for  the  care  of  his  boyish  years — this  young  man,  in  the 
eight  long  years  I  watched  over  him  with  a  parent's  anx- 
iety, never  could  repay  me  with  one  look  of  genuine 
feeling.  He  was  proud  when  I  praised ;  he  was  submis- 
sive when  I  reproved  him ;  but  he  did  never  love  me ; 
and  what  he  now  mistakes  for  gratitude  and  kindness 
for  me  is  but  the  pleasant  sensation  which  all  persons 
feel  at  revisiting  the  scenes  of  their  boyish  hopes  and 
fears ;  and  the  seeing  on  equal  terms  the  man  they  were 
accustomed  to  look  up  to  with  reverence.     My  wife, 


90  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

too,"  this  interesting  correspondent  goes  on  to  say,  "my 
once  darling  Anna,  is. the  wife  of  a  schoolmaster. — When 
I  married  her — knowing  that  the  wife  of  a  schoolmaster 
ought  to  be  a  busy,  notable  creature,  and  fearing  that 
my  gentle  Anna  would  ill  supply  the  loss  of  my  dear, 
bustling  mother,  just  then  dead,  who  never  sat  still,  was 
in  every  part  of  the  house  in  a  moment,  and  whom  I 
was  obliged  sometimes  to  threaten  to  fasten  down  in  a 
chair  to  save  her  from  fatiguing  herself  to  death — I  ex- 
pressed my  fears  that  I  was  bringing  her  into  a  way  of 
life  unsuitable  to  her ;  and  she,  who  loved  me  tenderly, 
promised  for  my  sake  to  exert  herself  to  perform  the 
duties  of  her  new  situation.  She  promised,  and  she  has 
kept  her  word.  What  wonders  will  not  woman's  love 
perform  ?  My  house  is  managed  with  a  propriety  and 
decorum  unknown  in  other  schools ;  my  boys  are  well 
fed,  look  healthy,  and  have  every  proper  accommoda- 
tion ;  and  all  this  performed  with  a  careful  economy 
that  never  descends  to  meanness.  But  I  have  lost  my 
gentle,  helpless  Anna  I  When  we  sit  down  to  enjoy  an 
hour  of  repose  after  the  fatigue  of  the  day,  I  am  com- 
pelled to  listen  to  what  have  been  her  useful  (and  they 
are  really  useful)  employments  through  the  day,  and 
what  she  proposes  for  her  to-morrow's  task.  Her  heart 
and  her  features  are  changed  by  the  duties  of  her  situa- 
tion. To  the  boys,  she  never  appears  other  than  the 
master^a  wife^  and  she  looks  up  to  me  as  the  'boy''s  master^ 
to  whom  all  show  of  love  and  affection  would  be  highly 
improper,  and  unbecoming  the  dignity  of  her  situation 
and  mine.  Yet  this  my  gratitude  forbids  me  to  hint  to 
her.  For  my  sake  she  submitted  to  be  this  altered  creat- 
ure, and  can  I  reproach  her  for  it  ?  " — For  the  communi- 
cation of  this  letter,  I  am  indebted  to  my  cousin  Bridget. 


VALENTINE'S-DAY.  91 


VALENTINE'S-DAY. 

Hail  to  thy  returning  festival,  old  Bishop  Valentine! 
Great  is  thy  name  in  the  rubric,  thou  venerable  arch- 
flamen  of  Hymen!  Immortal  go-between!  who  and 
what  manner  of  person  art  thou  ?  Art  thou  but  a  name, 
typifying  the  restless  principle  which  impels  poor  hu- 
mans to  seek  perfection  in  union  ?  or  wert  thou,  indeed, 
a  mortal  prelate,  with  thy  tippet  and  thy  rochet,  thy 
apron  on,  and  decent  lawn  sleeves?  Mysterious  person- 
age !  like  unto  thee,  assuredly,  there  is  no  other  mitred 
father  in  the  calendar ;  not  Jerome,  nor  Ambrose,  nor 
Cyril,  nor  the  consigner  of  undipped  infants  to  eternal 
torments,  Austin,  whom  all  mothers  hate ;  nor  he  who 
hated  all  mothers,  Origen;  nor  Bishop  Bull,  nor  Arch- 
bishop Parker,  nor  Whitgift.  Thou  comest  attended 
with  thousands  and  ten  thousands  of  little  loves,  and 
the  air  is 

"  Brushed  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings." 

Singing  Cupids  are  thy  choristers  and  thy  precentors ; 
and  instead  of  the  crosier,  the  mystical  arrow  is  borne 
before  thee. 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  day  on  which  those  charm- 
ing little  missives,  ycleped  Valentines,  cross  and  inter- 
cross each  other  at  every  street  and  turning.  The  weary 
and  all  forspent  twopenny-postman  sinks  beneath  a  load 
of  delicate  embarrassments  not  his  own.  It  is  scarcely 
credible  to  what  an  extent  this  ephemeral  courtship  is 
carried  on  in  this  loving  town,  to  the  great  enrichment 
of  porters,  and  detriment  of  knockers  and  bell- wires. 
In  these  little  visual  interpretations,  no  emblem  is  so 
common  as  the  heart — ^that  little,  three-cornwed  expo- 


92  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

nent  of  our  hopes  and  fears — the  bestuck  find  bleeding 
heart.  It  is  twisted  and  tortured  into  more  allegories 
and  affectations  than  an  opera-hat.  What  authority  we 
have  in  history  or  mythology  for  placing  the  headquar- 
ters and  metropolis  of  God  Cupid  in  this  anatomical  seat 
rather  than  in  any  other,  is  not  very  clear ;  but  we  have 
got  it,  and  it  will  serve  as  well  as  any  other.  Else  we 
might  easily  imagine — upon  some  other  system  which 
might  have  prevailed  for  anything  which  our  pathology 
knows  to  the  contrary — a  lover  addressing  his  mistress, 
in  perfect  simplicity  of  feeling,  "  Madam,  my  liver  and 
fortune  are  entirely  at  your  disposal ;  "  or  putting  a  deli- 
cate question,  '*  Amanda,  have  you  a  midriff  to  be- 
stow ? ''  But  custom  has  settled  these  things,  and  award- 
ed the  seat  of  sentiment  to  the  aforesaid  triangle,  while 
its  less  fortunate  meighbors  wait  at  animal  and  anatomi- 
cal distance. 

Not  many  sounds  in  life,  and  I  include  all  urban  and 
all  rural  sounds,  exceed  in  interest  a  IcnocTc  at  the  door. 
It  'Ogives  a  very  echo  to  the  throne  where  Hope  is  seat- 
ed." But  its  issues  seldom  answer  to  this  oracle  within. 
It  is  so  seldom  that  just  the  person  we  v/ant  to  see  comes. 
But  of  all  the  clamorous  visitations  the  welcomest  in  ex- 
pectation is  the  sound  that  ushers  in,  or  seems  to  usher 
in,  a  Valentine.  As  the  raven  himself  was  hoarse  that 
announced  the  fatal  entrance  of  Duncan,  so  the  knock  of 
the  postman  on  this  day  is  light,  airy,  confident,  and  be- 
fitting one  that  bringeth  good  tidings.  It  is  less  mechan- 
ical than  on  other  days.  You  will  say,  ''That  is  not  the 
post  I  am  sure."  Visions  of  Love,  of  Cupids,  of  Hymens ! 
— delightful  eternal  commonplaces,  which,  "  having  been, 
will  always  be ;  "  which  no  schoolboy  nor  schoolman  can 
write  away  ;  having  your  irreversible  throne  in  the  fan- 


VALENTINE'S-DAY.  93 

cy  and  affections — what  are  your  transports,  when  the 
liappy  maiden,  opening  with  careful  finger,  careful  not 
to  break  the  emblematic  seal,  bursts  upon  the  sight  of 
some  well-designed  allegory,  some  type,  some  youthful 
fancy,  not  without  verses — 

"  Lovers  all, 
A  madrigal," 

or  some  such  device,  not  over  abundant  in  sense — young 
Love  disclairao  it — and  not  quite  silly — something  be- 
tween wind  and  water,  a  chorus  where  the  sheep  might 
almost  join  the  shepherd,  as  they  did,  or  as  I  apprehend 
they  did,  in  Arcadia. 

All  Valentines  are  not  foolish ;  and  I  shall  not  easily 
forget  thine,  my  kind  friend — ^if  I  may  have  leave  to  call 
you  so — ^E.  B.  E.  B.  lived  opposite  a  young  maiden, 
whom  he  had  often  seen,  unseen,  from  his  parlor-win- 
dow in  0 — e  Street.  She  was  all  joyousness  and  inno- 
cence, and  just  of  an  age  to  enjoy  receiving  a  Valentine, 
and  just  of  a  temper  to  bear  the  disappointment  of  miss- 
ing one  with  good-humor.  E.  B.  is  an  artist  of  no  com- 
mon powers — in  the  fancy  parts  of  designing,  perhaps, 
inferior  to  none.  His  name  is  known  at  the  bottom  of 
many  a  well-executed  vignette  in  the  way  of  his  profes- 
sion, but  no  further — for  E.  B.  is  modest,  and  the  world 
meets  nobody  half-way.  E.  B.  meditated  how  he  could 
repay  this  young  maiden  for  many  a  favor  which  she  had 
done  him  unknown ;  for  when  a  kindly  face  greets  us, 
though  but  passing  by,  and  never  knows  us  again,  nor 
we  it,  we  should  feel  it  as  an  obligation ;  and  E.  B.  did. 
This  good  artist  set  himself  at  work  to  please  the  dam- 
sel. It  was  just  before  Valentine's-day  three  years  since. 
He  wrought,  unseen  and  unsuspected,  a  wondrous  work. 


94  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

We  need  not  say  it  was  on  the  finest  gilt  paper  with  bor- 
ders— full,  not  of  common  hearts  and  heartless  allegory, 
but  all  the  prettiest  stories  of  love  from  Ovid,  and  older 
poets  than  Ovid  (for  E.  B.  is  a  scholar).  «  There  was  Py- 
ramus  and  Thisbe,  and  be  sure  Dido  was  not  forgot,  nor 
Hero  and  Leander,  and  swans  more  than  sang  in  Cayster, 
with  mottoes  and  fanciful  devices,  such  as  beseemed — a 
work  in  short  of  magic.  Iris  dipped  the  woof.  This  on 
Valentine's-eve  he  commended  to  the  all-swallowing,  in- 
discriminate orifice — O  ignoble  trust ! — of  the  common 
post ;  but  the  humble  medium  did  its  duty,  and  from  his 
watchful  stand  the  next  morning  he  saw  the  cheerful 
messenger  knock,  and  by-and-by  the  precious  charge  de- 
livered. He  saw,  unseen,  the  happy  girl  unfold  the  Val- 
entine, dance  about,  clap  her  hands,  as  one  after  one  the 
pretty  emblems  unfolded  themselves.  She  danced  about, 
not  with  light  love,  or  foolish  expectations,  for  she  had 
no  lover ;  or,  if  she  had,  none  she  knew  that  could  have 
created  those  bright  images  which  delighted  her.  It  was 
more  like  some  fairy  present;  a  God-send,  as  our  famil- 
iarly pious  ancestors  termed  a  benefit  received  where 
the  benefactor  was  unknown.  It  would  do  her  no  harm. 
It  would  do  her  good  forever  after.  It  is  good  to  love 
the  unknown.  I  only  give  this  as  a  specimen  of  E.  B. 
and  his  modest  way  of  doing  a  concealed  kindness. 

Good-morrow  to  my  Valentine,  sings  poor  Ophelia ; 
and  no  better  wish,  but  with  better  auspices,  we  wish  to 
all  faithful  lovers,  who  are  not  too  wise  to  despise  old 
legends,  but  are  content  to  rank  tbsmselves  humble  dio- 
cesans of  old  Bishop  Valentine  and  his  true  church. 


IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIES.  95 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES. 

I  am  of  a  constitution  so  general,  that  it  consorts  and  sym- 
pathizeth  with  all  things ;  I  have  no  antipathy,  or  rather  idi- 
osyncrasy in  anything.  Those  natural  repugnancies  do  not 
touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  prejudice  the  French,  Italian, 
Spaniard,  or  Dutch. — Eeligio  Medici, 

That  the  author  of  the  Eeligio  Medici,  mounted  up- 
on the  airy  stilts  of  abstraction,  conversant  about  notion- 
al and  conjectural  essences ;  in  whose  categories  of  Be- 
ing the  possible  took  the  upper  hand  of  the  actual; 
should  have  overlooked  the  impertinent  individualities 
of  such  poor  concretions  as  mankind,  is  not  much  to  be 
admired.  It  is  rather  to  be  wondered  at,  that  in  the 
genus  of  animals  he  should  have  condescended  to  distin- 
guish that  species  at  all.  For  myself — earth-bound  and 
fettered  to  the  scene  of  my  activities — 

"  Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  sky," 

I  confess  that  I  do  feel  the  differences  of  mankind,  na- 
tional or  individual,  to  an  unhealthy  excess.  1  can  look 
with  no  indifferent  eye  upon  things  or  persons.  What- 
ever is,  is  to  me  a  matter  of  taste  or  distaste ;  or  when 
once  it  becomes  indifferent,  it  begins  to  be  disrelishing. 
I  am,  in  plainer  words,  a  bundle  of  prejudices — made  up 
of  likings  and  dislikings — the  veriest  thrall  to  sympathies, 
apathies,  antipathies.  In  a  certain  sense,  I  hope  it  may 
be  said  of  me  that  I  am  a  lover  of  my  species.  I  can  feel 
for  all  indifferently,  but  I  cannot  feel  toward  all  equally. 
The  more  purely-English  word  that  expresses  sympathy, 
will  better  explain  my  meaning.    I  can  be  a  friend  to  a 


96  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

wortliy  man,  who  upon  another  account  cannot  be  my 
inat^  or  fellow,    I  cannot  lilce  all  people  alike.* 

I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  like  Scotchmen,  and 
am  obliged  to  desist  from  the  experiment  in  despair. 
Thoy  cannot  like  me — and  in  truth,  I  never  knew  one  of 
that  nation  who  attempted  to  do  it.  There  is  something 
more  plain  and  ingenuous  in  their  mode  of  proceeding. 
We  know  one  another  at  first  sight.  There  is  an  order 
of  imperfect  intellects  (under  which  mine  must  be  con- 
tent to  rank)  which  in  its  constitution  is  essentially  anti- 
Caledonian.  The  owners  of  the  sort  of  faculties  I  allude 
to,  have  minds  rather  suggestive  than  comprehensive. 
They  have  no  pretenses  to  much  clearness  or  precision 

*  I  would  be  understood  as  confining  myself  to  the  subject  of 
imperfect  sympatTiies.     To  nations  or  classes  of  men  there  can  be 
no  direct  antipathy.     There  may  be  individuals  born  and  con- 
stellated so  opposite  to  another  individual  nature  that  the  same 
sphere  cannot  hold  them.    I  have  met  with  my  moral  antipodes, 
and  can  believe  the  story  of  two  persons  meeting  (who  never  saw 
one  another  before  in  their  lives)  and  instantly  fighting. 
" — "We  by  proof  find  there  should  be 
'Twixt  man  and  man  such  an  antipathy, 
That  though  he  can  show  no  just  reason  why 
For  any  former  wrong  or  injury. 
Can  neither  find  a  blemish  in  his  fame, 
Nor  aught  in  face  or  feature  justly  blame, 
Can  challenge  or  accuse  him  of  no  evil. 
Yet,  notwithstanding,  hates  him  as  a  devil." 

The  lines  are  from  old  Hey  wood's  "  Hierarchic  of  Angels,"  and 
he  subjoins  a  curious  story  in  confirmation,  of  a  Spaniard  who  at- 
tempted to  assassinate  a  King  Ferdinand  of  Spain,  and  being  put 
to  the  rack  could  give  no  other  reason  for  the  deed  but  an  invet- 
erate antipathy  which  he  had  taken  to  the  first  sight  of  the  King, 
" — The  cause  which  to  that  act  compelled  him 
Was,  he  ne'er  loved  him  since  he  first  beheld  him." 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATfllEa  97 

in  their  ideas,  or  in  their  manner  of  expressing  them. 
Their  intellectual  wardrobe  (to  confess  fairly)  has  few 
whole  pieces  in  it.  They  are  content  with  fragments 
and  scattered  pieces  of  Truth.  She  presents  no  full  front 
to  them — a  feature  or  side-face  at  the  most.  Hints  and 
glimpses,  germs  and  crude  essays  at  a  system,  is  the  ut- 
most they  pretend  to.  They  beat  up  a  little  game  per- 
adventure — and  leave  it  to  knottier  heads,  more  robust 
constitutions,  to  run  it  down.  The  light  that  lights  them 
is  not  steady  and  polar,  but  mutable  and  shifting :  wax- 
ing, and  again  waning.  Their  conversation  is  according- 
ly. They  will  throw  out  a  random  word  in  or  out  of 
season,  and  be  content  to  let  it  pass  for  what  it  is  worth. 
They  cannot  speak  always  as  if  they  were  upon  their  oath 
— but  must  be  understood,  speaking  or  writing,  with  some 
abatement.  They  seldom  wait  to  mature  a  proposition, 
but  e'en  bring  it  to  market  in  the  green  ear.  They  de- 
light to  impart  their  defective  discoveries  as  they  arise, 
without  waiting  for  their  development.  They  are  no 
systematizers,  and  would  but  err  more  by  attempting  it. 
Their  minds,  as  T  said  before,  are  suggestive  merely.  The 
brain  of  a  true  Caledonian  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  is  con- 
stituted upon  quite  a  different  plan.  His  Minerva  is  born 
in  panoply.  You  are  never  admitted  to  see  his  ideas  in 
their  growth — if,  indeed,  they  do  grow,  and  are  not  rather 
put  together  upon  principles  of  clock-work.  You  never 
catch  his  mind  in  an  undress.  He  never  hints  or  suggests 
anything,  but  unlades  his  stock  of  ideas  in  perfect  order 
and  completeness.  He  brings  his  total  wealth  into  com- 
pany, and  gravely  unpacks  it.  His  riches  are  always 
about  him.  He  never  stoops  to  catch  a  glittering  some- 
thing in  your  presence  to  share  it  with  you,  before  he 
quite  knows  whether  it  be  true  touch  or  not.  You  can- 
7 


98  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

not  cry  halves  to  anything  that  he  finds.  He  does  not 
find,  but  brings.  You  never  witness  his  first  apprehen- 
sion of  a  thing.  His  understanding  is  always  at  its  me- 
ridian— you  never  see  the  first  dawn,  the  early  streaks. 
— He  has  no  falterings  of  self-suspicion.  Surmises, 
guesses,  misgivings,  half-intuitions,  semi-consciousnesses, 
partial  illuminations,  dim  instincts,  embryo  conceptions, 
have  no  place  in  his  brain,  or  vocabulary.  The  twilight 
of  dubiety  never  falls  upon  him.  Is  he  orthodox — ^he  has 
no  doubts.  Is  he  an  infidel — he  has  none  either.  Be- 
tween the  affirmative  and  the  negative  there  is  no  border- 
land with  him.  You  cannot  hover  with  him  upon  the 
confines  of  truth,  or  wander  in  the  maze  of  a  probable 
argument.  He  always  keeps  the  path.  You  cannot 
make  excursions  with  him — for  he  sets  you  right.  His 
taste  never  fluctuates.  His  morality  never  abates.  He 
cannot  compromise,  or  understand  middle  actions.  There 
can  be  but  a  right  and  a  wrong.  His  conversation  is  as 
a  book.  His  affirmations  have  the  sanctity  of  an  oath. 
You  must  speak  upon  the  square  with  him.  He  stops  a 
metaphor  like  a  suspected  person  in  an  enemy's  country. 
"A  healthy  book!  " — said  one  of  his  countrymen  to  me, 
who  had  ventured  to  give  that  appellation  to  John  Bun- 
cle. — "  Did  I  catch  rightly  what  you  said  ?  I  have  heard 
of  a  man  in  health,  and  of  a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I 
do  not  see  how  that  epithet  can  be  properly  applied  to  a 
book."  Above  all,  you  must  beware  of  indirect  expres- 
sions before  a  Caledonian.  Clap  an  extinguisher  upon 
your  irony,  if  you  are  unhappily  blest  with  a  vein  of  it. 
Remember  you  are  upon  your  oath.  I  have  a  print  of 
a  graceful  female  after  Leonardo  da  Yinci,  which  I  was 
showing  off  to  Mr. .  After  he  had  examined  it  mi- 
nutely, I  ventured  to  ask  him  how  he  liked  my  beauty 


IMPERFECT   SYMPATHIES.  99 

(a  foolish  name  it  goes  by  among  my  friends) — when  he 
very  gravely  assured  me  that  "he  had  considerable  re- 
spect for  my  character  and  talents'*  (so  he  was  pleased 
to  say),  "  but  had  not  given  himself  much  thought  about 
the  degree  of  my  personal  pretensions."  The  miscon- 
ception staggered  me,  but  did  not  seem  much  to  discon- 
cert him.  Persons  of  this  nation  are  particularly  fond 
of  affirming  a  truth — which  nobody  doubts.  They  do 
not  so  properly  affirm,  as  annunciate  it.  They  do,  in- 
deed, appear  to  have  such  a  love  of  truth  (as  if,  like  vir- 
tue, it  were  valuable  for  itself)  that  all  truth  becomes 
equally  valuable,  whether  the  proposition  that  contains 
it  be  new  or  old,  disputed,  or  such  as  is  impossible  to  be- 
come a  subject  of  disputation.  I  was  present  not  long 
since  at  a  party  of  North  Britons,  where  a  son  of  Burns 
was  expected;  and  happened  to  drop  a  silly  expression 
(in  my  South  British  way),  that  I  wished  it  were  the 
father  instead  of  the  son — when  four  of  them  started  up 
at  once  to  inform  me  that  "that  was  impossible,  be- 
cause he  was  dead."  An  impracticable  wish,  it  seems, 
was  more  than  they  could  conceive.  Swift  has  hit  off 
this  part  of  their  character,  namely,  their  love  of  truth, 
in  his  biting  way,  but  with  an  illiberality  that  necessa- 
rily confines  the  passage  to  the  margin.*    The  tedious- 

*  There  are  some  people  who  think  they  sufficiently  acquit 
themselves,  and  entertain  their  company,  with  relating  facts  of 
no  consequence,  not  at  all  out  of  the  road  of  such  common  inci- 
dents as  happen  every  day ;  and  this  I  have  observed  more  fre- 
quently among  the  Scots  than  any  other  nation,  who  are  very 
careful  not  to  omit  the  minutest  circumstances  of  time  or  place ; 
which  kind  of  discourse,  if  it  were  not  a  little  relieved  by  the 
uncouth  terms  and  phrases,  as  well  as  accent  and  gesture  pecul- 
iar to  that  country,  would  be  hardly  tolerable. — Hints  toward  an 
Essay  on  Conversation. 


100  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

ness  of  these  people  is  certainly  provoking.  I  wonder 
if  they  ever  tire  one  another?  In  my  early  life  I  had  a 
passionate  fondness  for  the  poetry  of  Burns.  I  have 
sometimes  foolishly  hoped  to  ingratiate  myself  with  his 
countrymen  hy  expressing  it.  But  I  have  always  found 
that  a  true  Scot  resents  your  admiration  of  his  compat- 
riot, even  more  than  he  would  your  contempt  of  him. 
The  latter  he  imputes  to  your  ''  imperfect  acquaintance 
with  many  of  the  words  which  he  uses ; "  and  the  same 
objection  makes  it  a  presumption  in  you  to  suppose  that 
you  can  admire  him.  Thomson  they  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten. Smollett  they  have  neither  forgotten  nor  for- 
given, for  his  delineation  of  Kory  and  his  companion, 
upon  their  first  introduction  to  our  metropolis.  Speak 
of  Smollett  as  a  great  genius,  and  they  will  retort  upon 
you  Hume's  History  compared  with  his  Continuation  of  it. 
What  if  the  historian  had  continued  Humphrey  Clinker  ? 
I  have,  in  the  abstract,  no  disrespect  for  Jews.  They 
are  a  piece  of  stubborn  antiquity,  compared  with  which 
Stonehenge  is  in  its  nonage.  They  date  beyond  the  pyra- 
mids. But  I  should  not  care  to  be  in  habits  of  familiar 
intercourse  with  any  of  that  nation.  I  confess  that  I 
have  not  the  nerves  to  enter  their  synagogues.  Old 
prejudices  cling  about  me.  I  cannot  shake  off  the  story 
of  Hugh  of  Lincoln.  Centuries  of  injury,  contempt,  and 
hate,  on  the  one  side — of  cloaked  revenge,  dissimulation, 
and  hate,  on  the  other,  between  our  and  their  fathers, 
must  and  ought  to  affect  the  blood  of  the  children.  I 
cannot  believe  it  can  run  clear  and  kindly  yet ;  or  that  a 
few  fine  words,  such  as  candor,  liberality,  the  light  of  a 
nineteenth  century,  can  close  up  the  breaches  of  so  dead- 
ly a  disunion.  A  Hebrew  is  nowhere  congenial  to  me. 
He  is  least  distasteful  on  'Change — for  the  mercantile 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES.  101 

spirit  levels  all  distinctions,  as  all  are  beauties  in  tlie 
dark.  I  boldly  confess  that  I  do  not  relish  the  approxi- 
mation of  Jew  and  Christian,  which  has  become  so  fash- 
ionable. The  reciprocal  endearments  have,  to  me,  some- 
thing hypocritical  and  unnatural  in  them.  I  do  not  like 
to  see  the  Church  and  Synagogue  kissing  and  congeeing 
in  awkward  postures  of  an  affected  civility.  If  they  are 
converted,  why  do  they  not  come  over  to  us  altogether  ? 
Why  keep  up  a  form  of  separation  when  the  life  of  it  is 
fled  ?  If  they  can  sit  with  us  at  table,  why  do  they  keck 
at  our  cookery  ?  I  do  not  understand  these  half  convert- 
ites.  Jews  Christianizing — Christians  Judaizing — puzzle 
me.  I  like  fish  or  flesh.  A  moderate  Jew  is  a  more 
confounding  piece  of  anomaly  than  a  wet  Quaker.     The 

spirit  of  the  synagogue  is  essentially  separative,    B 

would  have  been  more  in  keeping  if  he  had  abided  by 
the  faith  of  his  forefathers.     There  is  a  fine  scorn  in  his 

face,  which  ITature  meant  to  be  of Christians.    The 

Hebrew  spirit  is  strong  in  him,  in  spite  of  his  prosely- 
tism.  He  cannot  conquer  the  Shibboleth.  How  it  breaks 
out  when  he  sings,  *'  The  Children  of  Israel  passed  through 
the  Red  Sea!"  The  auditors,  for  the  moment,  are  as 
Egyptians  to  him,  and  he  rides  over  our  necks  in  tri- 
umph.    There  is  no  mistaking  him.    B has  a  strong 

expression  of  sense  in  his  countenance,  and  it  is  confirmed 
by  his  singing.  The  foundation  of  his  vocal  excellence 
is  sense.  He  sings  with  understanding,  as  Kemble  de- 
livered dialogue.  He  would  sing  the  Commandments, 
and  give  an  appropriate  character  to  each  prohibition. 
His  nation,  in  general,  have  not  over-sensible  counte- 
nances. How  should  they? — but  you  seldom  see  a  silly 
expression  among  them.  Gain,  and  the  pursuit  of  gain, 
sharpen  a  man's  visage.    I  never  heard  of  an  idiot  be- 


102  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

ing  born  among  them.  Some  admire  the  Jewish  female 
physiognomy.  I  admire  it — but  with  trembling.  Jael 
had  those  full,  dark,  inscrutable  eyes. 

In  the  negro  countenance  you  will  often  meet  with 
strong  traits  of  benignity.  I  have  felt  yearnings  of  ten- 
derness toward  some  of  these  faces — or  rather  masks — 
that  have  looked  out  kindly  upon  one  in  casual  encoun- 
ters in  tlie  streets  and  highways.  I  love  what  Fuller 
beautifully  calls — these  "images  of  God  cut  in  ebony." 
But  I  should  not  like  to  associate  with  them,  to  share 
my  meals  and  my  good  nights  with  them — because  they 
are  black. 

I  love  Quaker  ways  and  Quaker  worship.  I  venerate 
the  Quaker  principles.  It  does  me  good  for  the  rest  of  the 
day  when  I  meet  any  of  their  people  in  my  path.  When 
I  am  ruffled  or  disturbed  by  any  occurrence,  the  sight, 
or  quiet  voice  of  a  Quaker,  acts  upon  me  as  a  ventilator, 
lightening  the  air,  and  taking  off  a  load  from  the  bosom. 
But  I  cannot  like  the  Quakers  (as  Desdemona  would  say) 
"  to  live  with  them."  I  am  all  over  sophisticated — with 
humors,  fancies,  craving  hourly  sympathy.  I  must  have 
books,  pictures,  theatres,  chit-chat,  scandal,  jokes,  am- 
biguities, and  a  thousand  whimwhams,  which  their  sim- 
pler taste  can  do  without.  I  should  starve  at  their 
primitive  banquet.  My  appetites  are  too  high  for  the 
salads  which  (according  to  Evelyn)  Eve  dressed  for  the 
angel,  my  gusto  too  excited 

*'  To  sit  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse." 

The  indirect  answers  which  Quakers  are  often  found 
to  return  to  a  question  put  to  them,  may  be  explained,  I 
think,  without  the  vulgar  assumption  that  they  are 
more  given  to  evasion  and  equivocating  than  other  peo- 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES.  103 

pie.  They  naturally  look  to  their  words  more  carefully, 
and  are  more  cautious  of  committing  themselves.  They 
have  a  peculiar  character  to  keep  up  on  this  head.  They 
stand  in  a  manner  upon  their  veracity.  A  Quaker  is  by 
law  exempted  from  taking  an  oath.  The  custom  of 
resorting  to  an  oath  in  extreme  cases,  sanctified  as  it  is 
by  all  religious  antiquity,  is  apt  (it  must  be  confessed) 
to  introduce  into  the  laxer  sort  of  minds  the  notion  of 
two  kinds  of  truth — the  one  applicable  to  the  solemn 
affairs  of  justice,  and  the  other  to  the  common  proceed- 
ings of  daily  intercourse.  As  truth  bound  upon  the  con- 
science by  an  oath  can  be  but  truth,  so  in  the  common 
affirmations  of  the  shop  and  the  market-place  a  latitude 
is  expected,  and  conceded  upon  questions  wanting  this 
solemn  covenant.  Something  less  than  truth  satisfies. 
It  is  common  to  hear  a  person  say,  "  You  do  not  expect 
me  to  speak  as  if  I  were  upon  my  oath."  Hence  a  great 
deal  of  incorrectness  and  inadvertency,  short  of  false- 
hood, creeps  into  ordinary  conversation ;  and  a  kind  of 
secondary  or  laic-truth  is  tolerated,  where  clergy-truth — 
oath-truth,  by  the  nature  of  the  circumstances,  is  not 
required.  A  Quaker  knows  none  of  this  distinction. 
His  simple  affirmation  being  received,  upon  the  most 
sacred  occasions,  without  any  further  test,  stamps  a 
value  upon  the  words  which  he  is  to  use  upon  the  most 
indifferent  topics  of  life.  He  looks  to  them,  naturally, 
with  more  severity.  You  can  have  of  him  no  more 
than  his  word.  He  knows,  if  he  is  caught  tripping  in  a 
casual  expression,  he  forfeits,  for  himself  at  least,  his 
claim  to  the  invidious  exemption.  He  knows  that  his 
syllables  are  weighed — and  how  far  a  consciousness  of 
this  particular  watchfulness,  exerted  against  a  person, 
has  a  tendency  to  produce  indirect  answers,  and  a  di- 


104  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

verting  of  the  question  by  honest  means,  might  be  il- 
lustrated, and  the  practice  justified,  by  a  more  sacred 
example  than  is  proper  to  be  adduced  upon  this  occa- 
sion. The  admirable  presence  of  mind,  which  is  noto- 
rious in  Quakers  upon  all  contingencies,  might  be  traced 
to  this  imposed  self-watchfulness— if  it  did  not  seem 
rather  an  humble  and  secular  scion  of  that  old  stock  of 
religious  constancy,  which  never  bent  or  faltered,  in  the 
Primitive  Friends,  or  gave  way  to  the  winds  of  persecu- 
tion, to  the  violence  of  judge  or  accuser,  under  trials  and 
racking  examinations.  "  You  will  never  be  the  wiser,  if 
I  sit  here  answering  your  questions  till  midnight,"  said 
one  of  those  upright  Justicers  to  Penn,  who  had  been 
putting  law-cases  with  a  puzzling  subtlety.  "  Thereafter 
as  the  answers  may  be,"  retorted  the  Quaker.  The  as- 
tonishing composure  of  this  people  is  sometimes  ludi- 
crously displayed  in  lighter  instances.  I  was  traveling 
in  a  stage-coach  with  three  male  Quakers,  buttoned  up 
in  the  straitest  nonconformity  of  their  sect.  We  stopped 
to  bait  at  Andover,  where  a  meal,  partly  tea-apparatus, 
partly  supper,  was  set  before  us.  My  friends  confined 
themselves  to  the  tea-table.  I  in  my  way  took  supper. 
When  the  landlady  brought  in  the  bill,  the  eldest  of  my 
companions  discovered  that  she  had  charged  for  both 
meals.  This  was  resisted.  Mine  hostess  was  very  clam- 
orous and  positive.  Some  mild  arguments  were  used  on 
the  part  of  the  Quakers,  for  which  the  heated  mind  of 
the  good  lady  seemed  by  no  means  a  fit  recipient.  The 
guard  came  in  with  his  usual  peremptory  notice.  The 
Quakers  pulled  out  their  money  and  formally  tendered 
it — so  much  for  tea — I,  in  humble  imitation,  tendering 
mine — for  the  supper  which  I  had  taken.  She  would  not 
relax  in  her  demand.  So  they  all  three  quietly  put  up  their 


WITCHES,  AND   OTHER  NIGHT-FEARS.        105 

silver,  as  did  myself,  and  marched  out  of  the  room,  the 
eldest  and  gravest  going  first,  with  myself  closing  up  the 
rear,  who  thought  I  could  not  do  better  than  follow  the 
example  of  such  grave  and  warrantable  personages.  "We 
got  in.  The  steps  went  up.  The  coach  drove  oif.  The 
murmurs  of  mine  hostess,  not  very  indistinctly  or  ambig- 
uously pronounced,  became  after  a  time  inaudible — and 
now  my  conscience,  which  the  whimsical  scene  had  for 
a  while  suspended,  beginning  to  give  some  twitches,  I 
waited,  in  the  hope  that  some  justification  would  be 
offered  by  these  serious  persons  for  the  seeming  injustice 
of  their  conduct.  To  my  great  surprise  not  a  syllable 
was  dropped  on  the  subject.  They  sat  as  mute  as  at  a 
meeting.  At  length  the  eldest  of  them  broke  silence, 
by  inquiring  of  his  next  neighbor,  '*  Hast  thee  heard 
how  indigos  go  at  the  India  House  ?  "  and  the  question 
operated  as  a  soporific  on  my  moral  feeling  as  far  as 
Exeter. 


WITCHES,   AND  OTHER  NIGHT-FEARS. 

We  are  too  hasty  when  we  set  down  our  ancestors  in 
the  gross  for  fools,  for  the  monstrous  inconsistencies  (as 
they  seem  to  us)  involved  in  their  creed  of  witchcraft. 
In  the  relations  of  this  visible  world  we  find  them  to 
have  been  as  rational,  and  shrewd  to  detect  an  historic 
anomaly,  as  ourselves.  But  when  once  the  invisible 
world  was  supposed  to  be  opened,  and  the  lawless  agen- 
cy of  bad  spirits  assumed,  what  measures  of  probability, 
of  decency,  of  fitness,  or  proportion — of  that  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  likely  from  the  palpable  absurd — could 
they  have  to  guide  them  in  the  rejection  or  admission  of 


106  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

finy  particular  testimony?  That  maidens  pined  away, 
wasting  inwardly  as  their  waxen  images  consumed  be- 
fore a  fire — that  corn  was  lodged,  and  cattle  lamed — that 
whirlwinds  uptore  in  diabolic  revelry  the  oaks  of  the 
forest-  or  that  spits  and  kettles  only  danced  a  fearful-in- 
nocent vagary  about  some  rustic's  kitchen  when  no  wind 
was  stirring — were  all  equally  probable  where  no  law  of 
agency  was  understood.  That  the  prince  of  the  powers 
of  darkness,  passing  by  the  flower  and  pomp  of  the  earth, 
should  lay  preposterous  siege  to  the  weak  fantasy  of  in- 
digent eld,  has  neither  likelihood  nor  unlikehood  a  priori 
to  us,  who  have  no  measure  to  guess  at  his  policy,  or 
standard  to  estimate  what  rate  those  anile  souls  may 
fetch  in  the  deviPs  market.  Nor,  when  the  wicked  are 
expressly  symbolized  by  a  goat,  was  it  to  be  wondered  at 
so  much  that  he  should  come  sometimes  in  that  body, 
and  assert  his  metaphor.  That  the  intercourse  was 
opened  at  all  between  both  worlds  was,  perhaps,  a  mis- 
take ;  but  that  once  assumed,  I  see  no  reason  for  disbe- 
lieving one  attested  story  of  this  nature  more  than  an- 
other on  the  score  of  absurdity.  There  is  no  law  to 
judge  of  the  lawless,  or  canon  by  which  a  dream  may  be 
criticised. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  could  not  have  exist- 
ed in  the  days  of  received  witchcraft ;  that  I  could  not 
have  slept  in  a  village  where  one  of  those  reputed  hags 
dwelt.  Our  ancestors  were  bolder  or  more  obtuse.  Amid 
the  universal  belief  that  these  wretches  were  in  league 
with  the  author  of  all  evil,  holding  hell  tributary  to  their 
muttering,  no  simple  justice  of  the  peace  seems  to  have 
scrupled  issuing,  or  silly  head-borough  serving,  a  warrant 
upon  them — as  if  they  should  subpoena  Satan !  Prosper© 
in  his  boat,  with  his  books  and  wand  about  him,  suffers 


WITCHES,  AND  OTHER  NIGHT-FEARS.       107 

himself  to  be  conveyed  away  at  the  mercy  of  his  ene- 
mies to  an  unknown  island.  He  might  have  raised  a 
storm  or  two,  we  think,  on  the  passage.  His  acquies- 
cence is  in  exact  analogy  to  the  non-resistance  of  witches 
to  the  constituted  powers.  What  stops  the  fiend  in 
Spenser  from  tearing  Guyon  to  pieces — or  who  had 
made  it  a  condition  of  his  prey,  that  Guyon  must  take 
assay  of  the  glorious  bait  ? — we  have  no  guess.  We  do 
not  know  the  laws  of  that  country. 

From  ray  childhood  I  was  extremely  inquisitive  about 
witches  and  witch-stories.  My  maid,  and  more  legenda- 
ry aunt,  supplied  me  with  good  store.  But  I  shall  men- 
tion the  accident  which  directed  my  curiosity  originally 
into  this  channel.  In  my  father's  book-closet,  the  '^His- 
tory of  the  Bible,''  by  Stackhouse,  occupied  a  distin- 
guished station.  The  pictures  with  which  it  abounds — 
one  of  the  ark,  in  particular,  and  another  of  Solomon's 
temple,  delineated  with  all  the  fidelity  of  ocular  admeas- 
urement, as  if  the  artist  had  been  upon  the  spot — attract- 
ed my  childish  attention.  There  was  a  picture,  too,  of 
the  Witch  raising  up  Samuel,  which  I  wish  that  I  had 
never  seen.  We  shall  come  to  that  hereafter.  Stack- 
house  is  in  two  huge  tomes — and  there  was  a  pleasure  in 
removing  folios  of  that  magnitude,  which,  with  infinite 
straining,  was  as  much  as  I  could  manage,  from  the  situa- 
tion which  they  occupied  upon  an  upper  shelf.  I  have  not 
met  with  the  work  from  that  time  to  this,  but  I  remember 
it  consisted  of  Old  Testament  stories,  orderly  set  down, 
with  the  objection  appended  to  each  story,  and  the  solution 
of  the  objection  regularly  tacked  to  that.  The  objection 
was  a  summary  of  whatever  difficulties  had  been  opposed 
to  the  probability  of  the  history,  by  the  shrewdness  of 
ancient  or  modern  infidelity,  drawn  up  with  an  almost 


108  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

complimentary  excess  of  candor.  The  solution  was  brief, 
modest,  and  satisfactory.  The  bane  and  antidote  were 
both  before  you.  To  doubts  so  put,  and  so  quashed, 
there  seemed  to  be  an  end  forever.  The  dragon  lay  dead, 
for  the  foot  of  the  veriest  babe  to  trample  on.  But — 
like  as  was  rather  feared  than  realized  from  that  slain 
monster  in  Spenser — from  the  womb  of  those  crushed 
errors  young  dragonets  would  creep,  exceeding  the  prow- 
ess of  so  tender  a  Saint  George  as  myself  to  vanquish. 
The  habit  of  expecting  objections  to  every  passage,  set 
me  upon  starting  more  objections,  for  the  glory  of  find- 
ing a  solution  of  my  own  for  them.  I  became  stag- 
gered and  perplexed,  a  skeptic  in  long-coats.  The  pretty 
Bible-stories  which  I  had  read,  or  heard  read  in  church, 
lost  their  purity  and  sincerity  of  impression,  and  were 
turned  into  so  many  historic  or  chronologic  theses  to  be 
defended  against  whatever  impugners.  I  was  not  to  dis- 
believe them,  but — the  next  thing  to  that — I  was  to  be 
quite  sure  that  some  one  or  other  would  or  had  disbe- 
lieved them.  Kext  to  making  a  child  an  infidel,  is  the  let- 
ting him  know  that  there  are  infidels  at  all.  Credulity  is 
the  man's  weakness,  but  the  child's  strength.  Oh,  how 
ugly  sound  scriptural  doubts  from  the  mouth  of  a  babe 
and  a  suckling !  I  should  have  lost  myself  in  these  mazes, 
and  have  pined  away,  I  think,  with  such  unfit  sustenance 
as  these  husks  afforded,  but  for  a  fortunate  piece  of  ill- 
fortune,  which  about  this  time  befell  me.  Turning  over 
the  picture  of  the  ark  with  too  much  haste,  I  unhappily 
made  a  breach  in  its  ingenious  fabric ;  driving  my  incon- 
siderate fingers  right  through  the  two  larger  quadrupeds 
— the  elephant  and  the  camel — that  stare  (as  well  they 
might)  out  of  the  last  two  windows  next  the  steerage  in 
that  unique  piece  of  naval  architecture.    Stackhouse  was 


WITCHES,  AND  OTHER  NIGHT-FEARS.       109 

henceforth  locked  up,  and  became  an  interdicted  treas- 
ure. With  the  book,  the  objections  and  solutions  gradu- 
ally cleared  out  of  my  head,  and  have  seldom  returned 
since  in  any  force  to  trouble  me.  But  there  was  one  im- 
pression which  I  had  imbibed  with  Stackhouse,  which 
no  lock  or  bar  could  shut  out,  and  which  was  destined  to 
try  my  childish  nerves  rather  more  seriously. — That  de- 
testable picture. 

I  was  dreadfully  alive  to  nervous  terrors.  The  night- 
time, solitude,  and  the  dark,  were  my  hell.  The  suffer- 
ings I  endured  in  this  nature  would  justify  the  expres- 
sion. I  never  laid  my  head  on  my  pillow,  I  suppose, 
from  the  fourth  to  the  seventh  or  eighth  year  of  my  life — 
so  far  as  memory  serves  in  things  so  long  ago — without 
an  assurance,  which  realized  its  own  prophecy,  of  seeing 
some  frightful  spectre.  Be  old  Stackhouse  then  acquitted 
in  part,  if  I  say  that  to  his  picture  of  the  witch  raising 
up  Samuel — (O  that  old  man  covered  with  a  mantle !) — 
I  owe,  not  my  midnight  terrors,  the  hell  of  my  infancy, 
but  the  shape  an4  manner  of  their  visitation.  It  was  he 
who  dressed  up  for  me  a  hag  that  nightly  sate  upon  my 
pillow — a  sure  bedfellow,  when  my  aunt  or  my  maid  was 
far  from  me.  All  day  long,  while  the  book  was  per- 
mitted me,  I  dreamed  waking  over  his  delineation,  and 
at  night  (if  I  may  use  so  bold  an  expression)  awoke  into 
sleep,  and  found  the  vision  true.  I  durst  not,  even  in 
the  daylight,  once  enter  the  chamber  where  I  slept, 
without  my  face  turned  to  the  window,  aversely  from 
the  bed  where  my  witch-ridden  pillow  was.  Parents  do 
not  know  what  they  do  when  they  leave  tender  babes 
alone  to  go  to  sleep  in  the  dark.  The  feeling  about  for 
a  friendly  arm — the  hoping  for  a  familiar  voice,  when 
they  awake  screaming,  and  find  none  to  soothe  them, 


110  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

what  a  terrible  shaking  it  is  to  their  poor  nerves!  The 
keeping  them  up  till  midnight,  through  candle-light  and 
the  unwholesome  hours,  as  they  are  called,  would,  I  am 
satisfied,  in  a  medical  point  of  view,  prove  the  better 
caution.  That  detestable  picture,  as  I  have  said,  gave  the 
fashion  to  my  dreams,  if  dreams  they  were,  for  the  scene 
of  them  was  invariably  the  room  in  which  I  lay.  Had  I 
never  met  with  the  picture,  the  fears  would  have  come 
self-piotured  in  some  shape  or  other — 

"  Headless  bear,  black  man,  or  ape  " — 
but,  as  it  was,  my  imaginations  took  that  form.  It  is 
not  book,  or  picture,  or  the  stories  of  foolish  servants, 
which  create  tliese  terrors  in  children.  They  can  at 
most  but  give  them  a  direction.  Dear  little  T.  H.,  who 
of  all  children  has  been  brought  up  with  the  most  scru- 
pulous exclusion  of  every  taint  of  superstition,  who  was 
never  allowed  to  hear  of  goblin  or  apparition,  or  scarce- 
ly to  be  told  of  bad  men,  or  to  read  or  hear  of  any  dis- 
tressing story,  finds  all  this  world  of  fear,  from  which 
he  has  been  so  rigidly  excluded  ab  ixtra^  in  his  own 
''  thick-coming  fancies ;  "  and  from  his  little  midnight 
pillow,  this  nurse-child  of  optimism  will  start  at  shapes, 
unborrowed  of  tradition,  in  sweats  to  which  the  reveries 
of  the  cell-damned  murderer  are  tranquillity. 

Gorgons,  and  Hydras,  and  OhimsDras  dire — stories  of 
Celseno  and  the  Harpies — may  reproduce  themselves  in 
the  brain  of  superstition — but  they  were  there  before. 
They  are  transcripts,  types — the  archetypes  are  in  us, 
and  eternal.  How  else  should  the  recital  of  that,  which 
we  know  in  a  waking  sense  to  be  false,  come  to  affect  us 
at  all?  or 

— "  Names,  whose  sense  we  see  not, 
Fray  us  with  things  that  be  not  ?  " 


WITCHES,  AND  OTHER  NIGHT-FEARS.       HI 

Is  it  that  we  naturally  conceive  terror  from  such  objects, 
considered  in  their  capacity  of  being  able  to  inflict  upon 
us  bodily  injury  ?  Oh,  least  of  all !  These  terrors  are 
of  older  standing.  They  date  beyond  body,  or,  without 
the  body,  they  would  have  been  the  same.  All  the  cruel, 
tormenting,  defined  devils  in  Dante,  tearing,  mangling, 
choking,  stifling,  scorching  demons — are  they  one-half 
so  fearful  to  the  spirit  of  a  man,  as  the  simple  idea  of  a 
spirit  unembodied  following  him — 

"  Like  one  that  on  a  lonesome  road 
Doth  walk  in  fear  and  dread, 
And  having  once  turned  round,  walks  on 
And  turns  no  more  his  head  ; 
Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 
Doth  close  behind  him  tread."  * 

That  the  kind  of  fear  here  treated  of  is  purely  spirit- 
ual— ^that  it  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it  is  objectless  upon 
earth — that  it  predominates  in  the  period  of  sinless  in- 
fancy— are  difiiculties,  the  solution  of  which  might  aiford 
some  probable  insight  into  our  antemundane  condition, 
and  a  peep  at  least  into  the  shadow-land  of  preexistence. 

My  night-fancies  have  long  ceased  to  be  aflflictive.  I 
confess  an  occasional  nightmare;  but  I  do  not,  as  in 
early  youth,  keep  a  stud  of  them.  Fiendish  faces,  with 
the  extinguished  tciper,  will  come  and  look  at  me ;  but  I 
know  them  for  mockeries,  even  while  I  cannot  elude 
their  presence,  and  I  fight  and  grapple  with  them.  For 
the  credit  of  ray  imagination,  I  am  almost  asharaerl  to 
say  how  tame  and  prosaic  my  dreams  are  grown.  They 
are  never  romantic,  seldom  even  rural.  They  are  of  ar- 
chitecture and  of  buildings — cities  abroad,  which  I  have 

*  Mr.  Coleridge^s  Ancient  Mariner. 


112  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

never  seen  and  hardly  have  hoped  to  see.  I  have  trav- 
ersed, for  the  seeming  length  of  a  natural  day,  Rome, 
Amsterdam,  Paris,  Lisbon — their  churches,  palaces, 
squares,  market-places,  shops,  suburbs,  ruins,  with  an 
inexpressible  sense  of  delight — a  map-like  distinctness 
of  trace — and  a  daylight  vividness  of  vision,  that  was  all 
but  being  awake.  I  have  formerly  traveled  among  the 
Westmoreland  fells — my  highest  Alps — but  they  are  ob- 
jects too  mighty  for  the  grasp  of  my  dreaming  recogni- 
tion; and  I  have  again  and  again  awoke  with  ineffectual 
struggles  of  the  inner  eye,  to  make  out  a  shape,  in  any 
way  whatever,  of  Helvellyn.  Methought  I  was  in  that 
country,  but  the  mountains  were  gone.  The  poverty  of 
my  dreams  mortifies  me.  There  is  Coleridge,  at  his  will 
can  conjure  up  icy  domes,  and  pleasure-houses  for  Kubla 
Khan,  and  Abyssinian  maids,  and  songs  of  Abara,  and 
caverns — 

"  Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  runs  " — 

to  solace  his  night  solitudes — when  I  cannot  muster  a 
fiddle.  Barry  Cornwall  has  his  tritons  and  his  nereids 
gamboling  before  him  in  nocturnal  visions,  and  proclaim- 
ing sons  born  to  Neptune — when  my  stretch  of  imagina- 
tive activity  can  hardly,  in  the  night-season,  raise  up  the 
ghost  of  a  fish-wife.  To  set  my  failures  in  somewhat  a 
mortifying  light — ^it  was  after  reading  the  noble  Dream 
of  this  poet,  that  my  fancy  ran  strong  upon  these  marine 
spectra ;  and  the  poor  plastic  power,  such  as  it  is,  within 
me  set  to  work,  to  humor  my  folly  in  a  sort  of  dream 
that  very  night.  Methought  I  was  upon  the  ocean-bil- 
lows at  some  sea-nuptials,  riding  and  mounted  high,  with 
the  customary  train  sounding  their  conchs  before  me  (I 
myself,  you  may  be  sure,  the  leading  god)^  and  jollily  we 


MY  RELATIONS.  113 

went  careering  over  the  main,  till  just  where  Ino  Leuco- 
thea  should  have  greeted  me  (I  think  it  was  Ino)  with  a 
white  embrace,  the  billows  gradually  subsiding,  fell  from 
a  sea-roughness  to  a  sea-calm,  and  thence  to  a  river-mo- 
tion, and  that  river  (as  happens  in  the  familiarization  of 
dreams)  was  no  other  than  the  gentle  Thames,  which 
landed  me  in  the  wafture  of  a  placid  wave  or  two,  alone, 
safe  and  inglorious,  somewhere  at  the  foot  of  Lambeth 
Palace. 

The  degree  of  the  soul's  creativeness  in  sleep  might 
furnish  no  whimsical  criterion  of  the  quantum  of  poeti- 
cal faculty  resident  in  the  same  soul  waking.  An  old 
gentleman,  a  friend  of  mine,  and  a  humorist,  used  to 
carry  this  notion  so  far  that,  when  he  saw  any  stripling 
of  his  acquaintance  ambitious  of  becoming  a  poet,  his 
first  question  would  be,  "Young  man,  what  sort  of 
dreams  have  you?"  I  have  so  much  faith  in  my  old 
friend's  theory  that,  when  I  feel  that  idle  vein  returning 
upon  me,  I  presently  subside  into  my  proper  element  of 
prose,  remembering  those  eluding  nereids,  and  that  in- 
auspicious inland  landing. 


MY  RELATIONS. 

I  AM  arrived  at  that  point  of  life  at  which  a  man  may 
account  it  a  blessing,  as  it  is  a  singularity,  if  he  have 
either  of  his  parents  surviving.  I  have  not  that  felicity 
— and  sometimes  think  feelingly  of  a  passage  in  Browne's 
Christian  Morals,  where  he  speaks  of  a  man  that  hath 
lived  sixty  or  seventy  years  in  the  world.  "  In  such  a 
compass  of  time,"  he  says,  "  a  man  may  have  a  close  ap- 

8 


114  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

prehension  what  it  is  to  be  forgotten,  when  he  hath  lived 
to  find  none  who  could  remember  his  father,  or  scarcely 
the  friends  of  his  youth,  and  may  sensibly  see  with  what 
a  face  in  no  long  time  Oblivion  will  look  upon  himself.'' 
I  had  an  aunt,  a  dear  and  good  one.  She  was  one 
whom  single  blessedness  had  soured  to  the  world.  She 
often  used  to  say  that  I  was  the  only  thing  in  it  which 
she  loved ;  and,  when  she  thought  I  was  quitting  it,  she 
grieved  over  me  with  mother's  tears.  A  partiality  quite 
so  exclusive  my  reason  cannot  altogether  approve.  She 
was  from  morning  till  night  poring  over  good  books,  and 
devotional  exercises.  Her  favorite  volumes  were  Thomas 
si  Kempis,  in  Stanhope's  translation ;  and  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic Prayer  Book,  with  the  matins  and  complines  regular- 
ly set  down — terms  which  I  was  that  time  too  young  to 
understand.  She  persisted  in  reading  them,  although 
admonished  daily  concerning  their  Papistical  tendeiLcy ; 
and  went  to  church  every  Sabbath  as  a  good  Protestant 
should  do.  These  were  the  only  books  she  studied; 
though  I  think,  at  one  period  of  her  life,  she  told  me,  she 
had  read  with  great  satisfaction  the  Adventures  of  an 
Unfortunate  Young  Nobleman.  Finding  the  door  of  the 
chapel  in  Essex  Street  open  one  day — it  was  in  the  infan- 
cy of  that  heresy — she  went  in,  liked  the  sermon,  and  the 
manner  of  worship,  and  frequented  it  at  intervals  for 
some  time  after.  She  came  not  for  doctrinal  points,  and 
never  missed  them.  "With  some  little  asperities  in  her 
constitution,  which  I  have  above  hinted  at,  she  was  a 
steadfast,  friendly  being,  and  a  fine  old  Christian,  She 
was  a  woman  of  strong  sense,  and  a  shrewd  mind — ex- 
traordinary at  fxrepartie;  one  of  the  few  occasions  of 
her  breaking  silence — else  she  did  not  much  value  wit. 
The  only  secular  employment  I  remember  to  have  seen 


MY  RELATIONS.  115 

her  engaged  in,  was,  the  {splitting  of  French  hears,  and 
dropping  them  into  a  china  basin  of  fair  water.  The 
odor  of  those  tender  vegetables  to  this  day  comes  back 
upon  my  senses,  redolent  of  soothing  recollections.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  the  most  delicate  of  culinary  operations. 

Male  aunts,  as  somebody  calls  them,  I  had  none — to 
remember.  By  the  uncle's  side  I  may  be  said  to  have 
been  born  an  orphan.  Brother,  or  sister,  I  never  had 
any — to  know  them.  A  sister,  I  think,  that  should  have 
been  Elizabeth,  died  in  both  our  infancies.  What  a  com- 
fort, or  what  a  care,  may  I  not  have  missed  in  her  ? — But 
I  have  cousins  sprinkled  about  in  Hertfordshire — besides 
two^  with  whom  I  have  been  all  my  life  in  habits  of  the 
closest  intimacy,  and  whom  I  may  term  cousins  par  ex- 
cellence. These  are  James  and  Bridget  Elia.  They  are 
older  than  myself  by  twelve,  and  ten,  years ;  and  neither 
of  them  seems  disposed,  in  matters  of  advice  and  guid- 
ance, to  waive  any  of  the  prerogatives  which  primogeni- 
ture confers.  May  they  continue  still  in  the  same  mind ; 
and  when  they  shall  be  seventy-five,  and  seventy-three, 
years  old  (I  cannot  spare  them  sooner),  persist  in  treat- 
ing me  in  my  grand  climacteric  precisely  as  a  stripling 
or  younger  brother ! 

James  is  an  inexplicable  cousin.  iN'ature  hath  her 
unities,  which  not  every  critic  can  penetrate ;  or,  if  we 
feel,  we  cannot  explain  them.  The  pen  of  Yorick,  and 
of  none  since  his,  could  have  drawn  J.  E.  entire — those 
fine  Shandean  lights  and  shades,  which  make  up  his  story. 
I  must  limp*after  in  my  poor  antithetical  manner,  as  the 
fates  have  given  me  grace  and  talent.  J.  E.  then — to  the 
eye  of  a  common  observer  at  least — seemeth  made  up  of 
contradictory  principles.  The  genuine  child  of  impulse, 
the  frigid  philosopher  of  prudence — the  phlegm  of  my 


116  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELTA. 

cousin's  doctrine  is  invariably  at  war  with  his  tempera- 
ment, which  is  high  sanguine.  With  always  some  fire- 
new  project  in  his  braiu,  J.  E.  is  the  systematic  opponent 
of  innovation,  and  crier  down  of  everything  that  has  not 
stood  the  test  of  age  and  experiment.  "With  a  hundred 
fine  notions  chasing  one  another  hourly  in  his  fancy,  he 
is  startled  at  the  least  approach  to  the  romantic  in  others ; 
and,  determined  by  his  own  sense  in  everything,  com- 
mends you  to  the  guidance  of  common-sense  on  all  occa- 
sions.— With  a  touch  of  the  eccentric  in  all  which  he 
does,  or  says,  he  is  only  anxious  that  you  should  not  com- 
mit yourself  by  doing  anything  absurd  or  singular.  On 
my  once  letting  slip  at  the  table,  that  I  was  not  fond  of 
a  certain  popular  dish,  he  begged  me  at  any  rate  not  to 
say  so — for  the  world  would  think  me  mad.  He  disguises 
a  passionate  fondness  for  works  of  high  art  (whereof  he 
hath  amassed  a  choice  collection),  under  the  pretext  of 
buying  only  to  sell  again — that  his  enthusiasm  may  give 
no  encouragement  to  yours.  Yet,  if  it  were  so,  why  does 
that  piece  of  tender,  pastoral  Domenichino  hang  still  by 
his  wall? — is  the  ball  of  his  sight  much  more  dear  to 
him  ? — or  what  picture-dealer  can  talk  like  him  ? 

Whereas  mankind,  in  general,  are  observed  to  warp 
their  speculative  conclusions  to  the  bent  of  their  individ- 
ual humors,  his  theories  are  sure  to  be  in  diametrical  op- 
position to  his  constitution.  He  is  courageous  as  Charles 
of  Sweden,  upon  instinct ;  chary  of  his  person  upon  prin- 
ciple, as  a  traveling  Quaker. — He  has  been  preaching  up 
to  me,  all  my  life,  the  doctrine  of  bowing  to  the  great — 
the  necessity  of  forms,  and  manner,  to  a  man's  getting  on 
in  the  world.  He  himself  never  aims  at  either,  that  I  can 
discover — and  has  a  spirit  that  would  stand  upright  in 
the  presence  of  the  Cham  of  Tartary.    It  is  pleasant  to 


MY  RELATIONS.  117 

hear  him  discourse  of  patience — extolling  it  as  the  truest 
wisdom — and  to  see  him  during  the  last  seven  minutes 
that  his  dinner  is  getting  ready.  Nature  never  ran  up  in 
her  haste  a  more  restless  piece  of  workmanship  than 
when  she  moulded  this  impetuous  cousin — and  Art  never 
turned  out  a  more  elaborate  orator  than  he  can  display 
himself  to  be,  upon  this  favorite  topic  of  the  advantages 
of  quiet  and  contentedness  in  the  state,  whatever  it  be, 
that  we  are  placed  in.  He  is  triumphant  on  this  theme, 
when  he  has  you  safe  in  one  of  those  short  stages  that 
ply  for  the  western  road,  in  a  very  obstructing  manner, 
at  the  foot  of  John  Murray's  Street — where  you  get  in 
when  it  is  empty,  and  are  expected  to  wait  till  the  vehi- 
cle hath  completed  her  just  freight — a  trying  three-quar- 
ters of  an  hour  to  some  people.  He  wonders  at  your 
fidgetiness — *'  where  could  we  be  better  than  we  are,  thus 
sitting^  thus  consulting?  " — "  prefers,  for  his  part,  a  state 
of  rest  to  locomotion" — with  an  eye  all  the  while  upon 
the  coachman — till  at  length,  waxing  out  of  all  patience, 
at  your  want  of  it^  he  breaks  out  into  a  pathetic  remon- 
strance at  the  fellow  for  detaining  us  so  long  over  the 
time  which  he  had  professed,  and  declares  peremptorily, 
that  "the  gentleman  in  the  coach  is  determined  to  get 
out,  if  he  does  not  drive  on  that  instant." 

Very  quick  at  inventing  an  argument,  or  detecting  a 
sophistry,  he  is  incapable  of  attending  you  in  any  chain 
of  arguing.  Indeed,  he  makes  wild  work  with  logic :  and 
seems  to  jump  at  most  admirable  conclusions  by  some  pro- 
cess, not  at  all  akin  to  it.  Consonantly  enough  to  this, 
he  hath  been  heard  to  deny,  upon  certain  occasions,  that 
there  exists  such  a  faculty  at  all  in  man  as  reason ;  and 
wondereth  how  man  came  first  to  have  a  conceit  of  it — 
enforcing  his  negation  with  all  the  might  of  reasoning  he 


118  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

is  master  of.  He  has  some  speculative  notions  against 
laughter,  and  will  maintain  that  laughing  is  not  natural 
to  Mm — when  peradventure  the  next  moment  his  lungs 
shall  crow  like  Chanticleer.  He  says  some  of  the  best 
things  in  the  world — and  declareth  that  wit  is  his  aver- 
sion. It  was  he  who  said,  upon  seeing  the  Eton  boys  at 
play  in  their  grounds —  What  a  pity  to  think  that  these 
fine  ingemwus  lads  in  a  few  years  will  all  he  changed  into 
friwloiis  Members  of  Parliament ! 

His  youth  was  fiery,  glowing,  tempestuous — and  in 
age  he  discovereth  no  symptom  of  cooling.  This  is  that 
which  I  admire  in  him.  I  hate  people  who  meet  Time 
half-way.  I  am  for  no  compromise  with  that  inevitable 
spoiler.  While  he  lives,  J.  E.  will  take  his  swing.  It 
does  me  good,  as  I  walk  toward  the  street  of  my  daily  av- 
ocation, on  some  fine  May  morning,  to  meet  him  march- 
ing in  a  quite  opposite  direction,  with  a  jolly,  handsome 
presence,  and  shining,  sanguine  face,  that  indicates  some 
purchase  in  his  eye — a  Claude — or  a  Hobbima — for  much 
of  his  enviable  leisure  is  consumed  at  Christie's  and  Phil- 
lips's— or  where  not,  to  pick  up  pictures,  and  such  gauds. 
On  these  occasions  he  mostly  stopped  me,  to  read  a  short 
lecture  on  the  advantage  a  person  like  me  possesses  above 
himself,  in  having  his  time  occupied  with  business  which 
he  must  do — assureth  me  that  he  often  feels  it  hang  heavy 
on  his  hands — wishes  he  had  fewer  holidays — and  goes 
off — Westward  Ho ! — chanting  a  tune,  to  Pall  Mall — per- 
fectly convinced  that  he  has  convinced  me — while  I  pro- 
ceed in  ray  opposite  direction  tuneless. 

It  is  pleasant  again  to  see  this  Professor  of  Indifi'er- 
ence  doing  the  honors  of  his  new  purchase,  when  he 
has  fairly  housed  it.  You  must  view  it  in  every  light, 
till  he  has  found  the  best — placing  it  at  this  distance,  and 


MY  RELATIONS.  119 

at  that,  but  always  suiting  the  focus  of  your  sight  to  bis 
own.  You  must  spy  at  it  through  your  fingers,  to  catch 
the  aerial  perspective — though  you  assure  him  that  to 
you  the  landscape  shows  much  more  agreeable  without 
that  artifice.  Woe  be  to  the  luckless  wight,  who  does 
not  only  not  respond  to  his  rapture,  but  who  should  drop 
an  unseasonable  intimation  of  preferring  one  of  his  an- 
terior bargains  to  the  present ! — The  last  is  always  his 
best  hit — his  *'  Cynthia  of  the  minute." — Alas  I  how 
many  a  mild  Madonna  have  I  known  to  come  in — a  Ra- 
phael ! — keep  its  ascendency  for  a  few  brief  moons — then, 
after  certain  intermedial  degradations,  from  the  front 
drawing-room  to  the  back  -^gallery,  thence  to  the  dark 
parlor — adopted  in  turn  by  each  of  the  Carracci,  under 
successive  lowering  ascriptions  of  filiation,  mildly  break- 
ing its  fall — consigned  to  the  oblivious  lumber-room,  go 
out  at  last  a  Lucca  Giordano,  or  plain  Carlo  Maratti ! — 
which  things  when  I  beheld — musing  upon  the  chances 
and  mutabilities  of  fate  below,  hath  made  me  to  reflect 
upon  the  altered  condition  of  great  personages,  or  that 
woful  Queen  of  Richard  II. — 

" — set  forth  in  pomp, 
She  came  adorned  hither  like  sweet  May, 
Sent  back  like  Hallowmas,  or  shortest  of  day." 
With  great  love  for  you  J.  E.  hath  but  a  limited  sympa- 
thy with  what  you  feel  or  do.     He  lives  in  a  world  of 
his  own,  and  makes  slender  guesses  at  what  passes  in 
your    mind.      He  never  pierces  the   marrow   of  your 
habits.     He  will  tell   an  old-established  play-goer  that 
Mr.  Such-a-one,  of  So-and-so  (naming  one  of  the  thea- 
tres), is  a  very  lively  comedian — as  a  piece  of  news! 
He  advertised  me  but  the  other  day  of  some  pleas- 
ant green  lanes    which    he  had   found  out  for  me, 


120  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

Tcnowing  me  to  le  a  great  walker^  in  my  own  immediate 
vicinity,  who  have  haunted  the  identical  spot  any  time 
these  twenty  years !  He  has  not  much  respect  for  that 
class  of  feelings  which  goes  by  the  name  of  sentimental. 
He  applies  the  definition  of  real  evil  to  bodily  sufferings 
exclusively,  and  rejecteth  all  others  as  imaginary.  He 
is  affected  by  the  sight  or  the  bare  supposition  of  a 
creature  in  pain  to  a  degree  which  I  have  never  wit- 
nessed out  of  womankind.  A  constitutional  acuteness 
to  this  class  of  sufferings  may  in  part  account  for  this. 
The  animal  tribe  in  particular  he  taketh  under  his  espe- 
cial protection.  A  broken- winded  or  spur-galled  horse 
is  sure  to  find  an  advocate  in  him.  An  overloaded  ass 
is  his  client  forever.  He  is  the  apostle  to  the  brute  kind 
— the  never-failing  friend  of  those  who  have  none  to 
care  for  them.  The  contemplation  of  a  lobster  boiled  or 
eels  skinned  alim  will  wring  him  so  that  "all  for  pity  he 
could  die."  It  will  take  the  savor  from  his  palate  and  the 
rest  from  his  pillow  for  days  and  nights.  With  the  in- 
tense feeling  of  Thomas  Clarkson,  he  wanted  only  the 
steadiness  of  pursuit  and  unity  of  purpose  of  that  "  true 
yoke-fellow  with  Time  "  to  have  effected  as  much  for 
the  Animal  as  he  hath  done  for  the  Negro  Creation. 
But  my  uncontrollable  cousin  is  but  imperfectly  formed 
for  purposes  which  demand  cooperation.  He  cannot 
wait.  His  amelioration-plans  must  be  ripened  in  a  day. 
For  this  reason  he  has  cut  but  an  equivocal  figure  in 
benevolent  societies  and  combinations  for  the  alleviation 
of  human  sufferings.  His  zeal  constantly  makes  him  to 
outrun  and  put  out  his  coadjutors.  He  thinks  of  reliev- 
ing, while  they  think  of  debating.     He  was  blackballed 

out  of  a  society  for  the  Relief  of because  the  fervor 

of  his  humanity  toiled  beyond  the  formal  apprehension 


MACKERY  END,  IN   HERTFORDSHIRE.        121 

and  creeping  processes  of  his  associates.  I  shall  always 
consider  this  distinction  as  a  patent  of  nobility  in  the 
Elia  family  I 

Do  I  mention  these  seeming  inconsistencies  to  smile 
at  or  upbraid  my  unique  cousin?  Marry,  heaven,  and 
all  good  manners,  and  the  understanding  that  should  be 
between  kinsfolk,  forbid !  With  all  the  strangenesses  of 
this  strangest  of  the  Elias^  I  would  not  have  him  in  one 
jot  or  tittle  other  than  he  is;  neither  would  I  barter  or 
exchange  my  wild  kinsman  for  the  most  exact,  regular, 
and  every  way  consistent  kinsman  breathing. 

In  my  next,  reader,  I  may  perhaps  give  you  some  ac- 
count of  my  cousin  Bridget — if  you  are  not  already  sur- 
feited with  cousins — and  take  you  by  the  hand,  if  you 
are  willing  to  go  with  us,  on  an  excursion  which  wo 
made  a  summer  or  two  since,  in  search  oi  more  cousins — 

"  Through  the  green  plains  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire." 


MAOKERY  END,  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE. 

Bridget  Elia  has  been  my  housekeeper  for  many  a 
long  year.  I  have  obligations  to  Bridget  extending  be- 
yond the  period  of  memory.  We  house  together,  old 
bachelor  and  maid,  in  a  sort  of  double  singleness,  with 
such  tolerable  comfort,  upon  the  whole,  that  I,  for  one, 
find  in  mysel  f  no  sort  of  disposition  to  go  out  upon  the 
mountains,  with  the  rash  king's  offspring,  to  bewail  my 
celibacy.  We  agree  pretty  well  in  our  tastes  and  habits 
— yet  so,  as  "  with  a  difference."  We  are  generally  in 
harmony,  with  occasional  bickerings — as  it  should  be 
among  near  relations.     Our  sympathies  are  rather  un- 


122  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

derstood  than  expressed;  and  once,  upon  my  dissem- 
bling a  tone  in  my  voice  more  kind  than  ordinary,  my 
cousin  burst  into  tears,  and  complained  that  I  was  al- 
tered. We  are  both  great  readers  in  different  directions. 
While  I  am  hanging  over  (for  the  thousandth  time)  some 
passage  in  old  Burton,  or  one  of  his  strange  contempo- 
raries, she  is  abstracted  in  some  modern  tale  or  advent- 
ure, whereof  our  common  reading-table  is  daily  fed  with 
assiduously  fresh  supplies.  Narrative  teases  me.  I 
have  little  concern  in  the  progress  of  events.  She  must 
have  a  story — well,  ill,  or  indifferently  told,  so  there  be 
lil^  stirring  in  it,  and  plenty  of  good  or  evil  accidents. 
The  fluctuations  of  fortune  in  fiction,  and  almost  in  real 
life,  have  ceased  to  interest,  or  operate  but  dully  upon 
me.  Out-of-the-way  humors  and  opinions — heads  with 
some  diverting  twist  in  them — the  oddities  of  authorship 
please  me  most.  My  cousin  has  a  native  disrelish  of 
anything  that  sounds  odd  or  Hzarre.  Nothing  goes 
down  with  her  that  is  quaint,  irregular,  or  out  of  the 
road  of  common  sympathy.  She  "  holds  Nature  more 
clever."  I  can  pardon  her  blindness  to  the  beautiful 
obliquities  of  the  Religio  Medici;  but  she  must  apolo- 
gize to  me  for  certain  disrespectful  insinuations  which 
she  has  been  pleased  to  throw  out  latterly  touching  the 
intellectuals  of  a  dear  favorite  of  mine,  of  the  last  cen- 
tury but  one — the  thrice  noble,  chaste,  and  virtuous, 
but  again  somewhat  fantastical,  and  original-brained, 
generous  Margaret  Newcastle. 

It  has  been  the  lot  of  my  cousin,  oftener  perhaps 
than  I  could  have  wished,  to  have  had  for  her  associates 
and  mine  freethinkers — leaders  and  disciples  of  novel 
philosophies  and  systems;  but  she  neither  wrangles  with 
nor  accepts  their  opinions.    That  which  was  good  and 


MACKERY  END,  IN   HERTFORDSHIRE.        123 

venerable  to  her  when  a  child  retains  its  authority  over 
her  mind  still.  She  never  juggles  or  plays  tricks  with 
her  understanding. 

We  are  both  of  us  inclined  to  be  a  little  too  positive, 
and  I  have  observed  the  result  of  our  disputes  to  be  almost 
uniformly  this — that  in  matters  of  fact,  dates,  and  cir- 
cumstances, it  turns  out  that  I  was  in  the  right,  and  my 
cousin  in  the  wrong.  But  where  we  have  differed  upon 
moral  points ;  upon  something  proper  to  be  done  or  let 
alone ;  whatever  heat  of  opposition  or  steadiness  of  con- 
viction I  set  out  with,  I  am  sure  always,  in  the  long-run, 
to  be  brought  over  to  her  way  of  thinking. 

I  must  touch  upon  the  foibles  of  my  kinswoman  with 
a  gentle  hand,  for  Bridget  does  not  like  to  be  told  of  her 
faults.  She  hath  an  awkward  trick  (to  say  no  worse  of 
it)  of  reading  in  company ;  at  "which  times  she  will  an- 
swer yes  or  no  to  a  question,  without  fully  understanding 
its  purport — which  is  provoking,  and  derogatory  in  the 
highest  degree  to  the  dignity  of  the  putter  of  the  said 
question.  Her  presence  of  mind  is  equal  to  the  most 
pressing  trials  of  life,  but  will  sometimes  desert  her  upon 
trifling  occasions.  When  the  purpose  requires  it,  and  is 
a  thing  of  moment,  she  can  speak  to  it  greatly ;  but  in 
matters  which  are  not  stuff  of  the  conscience,  she  hath 
been  known  sometimes  to  let  slip  a  word  less  seasonably. 

Her  education  in  youth  was  not  much  attended  to ; 
and  she  happily  missed  all  that  train  of  female  garniture, 
which  passeth  by  the  name  of  accomplishments.  She 
was  tumbled  early,  by  accident  or  design,  into  a  spacious 
closet  of  good  old  English  reading,  without  much  selec- 
tion or  prohibition,  and  browsed  at  will  upon  that  fair 
and  wholesome  pasturage.  Had  I  twenty  girls,  they 
should  be  brought  up  exactly  in  this  fashion.     I  know 


124  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

not  whether  their  chance  in  wedlock  might  not  be  tii- 
minished  by  it ;  but  I  can  answer  for  it,  that  it  makes 
(if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst)  most  incomparable  old 
maids. 

In  a  season  of  distress,  she  is  the  truest  comforter ; 
but  in  the  teasing  accidents,  and  minor  perplexities, 
which  do  not  call  out  the  will  to  meet  them,  she  some- 
times raaketh  matters  worse  by  an  excess  of  participa- 
tion. If  she  does  not  always  divide  your  trouble,  upon 
the  pleasanter  occasions  of  life  she  is  sure  always  to 
treble  your  satisfaction.  She  is  excellent  to  be  at  a  play 
with,  or  upon  a  visit;  but  best,  when  she  goes  a  journey 
with  you. 

We  made  an  excursion  together  a  few  summers  since, 
into  Hertfordshire,  to  beat  up  the  quarters  of  some  of 
our  less-known  relations  in  that  fine  corn-country. 

The  oldest  thing  I  remember  is  Mackery  End ;  or 
Mackarel  End,  as  it  is  spelt,  perhaps  more  properly,  in 
some  old  maps  of  Hertfordshire ;  a  farmhouse — delight- 
fully situated  within  a  gentle  walk  from  Wheathamp- 
stead.  I  can  just  remember  having  been  there,  on  a 
visit  to  a  great-aunt,  when  I  was  a  child,  under  the  care 
of  Bridget ;  who,  as  I  have  said,  is  older  than  myself  by 
some  ten  years.  I  wish  that  I  could  throw  into  a  heap  the 
remainder  of  our  joint  existences ;  that  we  might  share 
them  in  equal  division.  But  that  is  impossible.  The 
house  was  at  that  time  in  the  occupation  of  a  substantial 
yeoman,  who  had  married  my  grandmother's  sister.  His 
name  was  Gladman.  My  grandmother  was  a  Bruton, 
married  to  a  Field.  The  Gladmans  and  the  Brutons  are 
still  flourishing  in  that  part  of  the  country,  but  the  Fields 
are  almost  extinct.  More  than  forty  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  visit  I  speak  of;  and,  for  the  greater  portion  of 


MACKERY  END,  IN  HERTFORDSHIRE.        125 

that  period,  we  had  lost  sight  of  the  other  two  branches 
also.  Who  or  what  sort  of  persons  inherited  Mackery 
End — kindred  or  strange  folk — we  were  afraid  almost  to 
conjecture,  but  determined  some  day  to  explore. 

By  somewhat  a  circuitous  route,  taking  the  noble 
park  at  Luton  in  our  way  from  Saint  Albans,  we  arrived 
at  the  spot  of  our  anxious  curiosity  about  noon.  The 
sight  of  the  old  farmhouse,  though  every  trace  of  it  was 
effaced  from  my  recollection,  affected  me  with  a  pleasure 
which  I  had  not  experienced  for  many  a  year.  For 
though  /  had  forgotten  it,  we  had  never  forgotten  being 
there  together,  and  we  had  been  talking  about  Mackery 
End  all  our  lives,  till  memory  on  my  part  became  mocked 
with  a  phantom  of  itself,  and  I  thought  I  knew  the  aspect 
of  a  place  which,  when  present,  O  how  unlike  it  was  to 
that  which  I  had  conjured  up  so  many  times  instead 
of  it! 

Still  the  air  breathed  balmily  about  it ;  the  season 
was  in  the  "heart  of  June,"  and  I  could  say  with  the 

poet — 

"  But  thou,  that  didst  appear  so  fair 
To  fond  imagination, 
Dost  rival  in  the  light  of  day 
Her  delicate  creation ! " 

Bridget's  was  more  a  waking  bliss  than  mine,  for  she 
easily  remembered  her  old  acquaintance  again — some 
altered  features,  of  course,  a  little  grudged  at.  At  first, 
indeed,  she  was  ready  to  disbelieve  for  joy;  but  the 
scene  soon  reconfirmed  itself  in  her  affections — and  she 
traversed  every  outpost  of  the  old  mansion,  to  the  wood- 
house,  the  orchard,  the  place  where  the  pigeon-house 
had  stood  (house  and  birds  had  alike  flown) — with  a 
breathless  impatience  of  recognition,  which  was  more 


126  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

pardonable  perhaps  than  decorous  at  the  age  of  fifty-odd. 
But  Bridget  in  some  things  is  behind  her  years. 

The  only  thing  left  was  to  get  into  the  house — and 
that  was  a  difficulty  which  to  me  singly  would  have 
been  insurmountable ;  for  I  am  terribly  shy  in  making 
myself  known  to  strangers  and  out-of-date  kinsfolk. 
Love,  stronger  than  scruple,  winged  my  cousin  in  with- 
out me ;  but  she  soon  returned  with  a  creature  that 
might  have  sat  to  a  sculptor  for  the  image  of  Welcome. 
It  was  the  youngest  of  the  Gladmans;  who,  by  marriage 
with  a  Bruton,  had  become  mistress  of  the  old  mansion. 
A  comely  brood  are  the  Brutons.  Six  of  them,  females, 
were  noted  as  the  handsomest  young  women  in  the 
county.  But  this  adopted  Bruton,  in  my  mind,  was  bet- 
ter than  they  all — more  comely.  She  was  born  too  late 
to  have  remembered  me.  She  just  recollected  in  early 
life  to  have  had  her  cousin  Bridget  once  pointed  out  to 
her,  climbing  a  stile.  But  the  name  of  kindred,  and  of 
cousinship,  was  enough.  Those  slender  ties,  that  prove 
slight  as  gossamer  in  the  rending  atmosphere  of  a  me- 
tropolis, bind  faster,  as  we  found  it,  in  hearty,  homely, 
loving  Hertfordshire.  In  five  minutes  we  were  as  thor- 
oughly acquainted  as  if  we  had  been  born  and  bred  up 
together ;  were  familiar,  even  to  the  calling  each  other 
by  our  Christian  names.  So  Christians  should  call  one 
another.  To  have  seen  Bridget,  and  her — it  was  like  the 
meeting  of  the  two  scriptural  cousins!  There  was  a 
grace  and  dignity,  an  amplitude  of  form  and  stature,  an- 
swering to  her  mind,  in  this  farmer's  wife,  which  would 
have  shined  in  a  palace — or  so  we  thought  it.  We  were 
made  welcome  by  husband  and  wife  equally — we,  and 
our  friend  that  was  with  us.  I  had  almost  forgotten  him 
— but  B.  F.  will  not  so  soon  forget  that  meeting,  if  per- 


MODERN  GALLANTRY.  127 

adventure  he  shall  read  this  on  the  far-distant  shores 
where  the  kangaroo  haunts.  The  fatted  calf  was  made 
ready,  or  rather  was  already  so,  as  if  in  anticipation  of 
our  coming;  and,  after  an  appropriate  glass  of  native 
wine,  never  let  me  forget  with  what  honest  pride  this 
hospitable  cousin  made  us  proceed  to  "Wheathampstead, 
to  introduce  us  (as  some  new-found  rarity)  to  her  mother 
and  sister  Gladmans,  who  did  indeed  know  something 
more  of  us,  at  a  time  when  she  almost  knew  nothing. 
With  what  corresponding  kindness  we  were  received  by 
them  also — how  Bridget's  memory,  exalted  by  the  occa- 
sion, warmed  into  a  thousand  half-obliterated  recollec- 
tions of  things  and  persons  to  my  utter  astonishment, 
and  her  own — and  to  the  astoundment  of  B.  F.,  who  sat 
by,  almost  the  only  thing  that  was  not  a  cousin  there — 
old  effaced  images  of  more  than  half -forgotten  names  and 
circumstances  still  crowding  back  upon  her,  as  words 
written  in  lemon  come  out  upon  exposure  to  a  friendly 
warmth — when  I  forget  all  this,  then  may  my  country 
cousins  forget  me ;  and  Bridget  no  more  remember,  that 
in  the  days  of  weakling  infancy  I  was  her  tender  charge 
— as  I  have  been  her  care  in  foolish  manhood  since — in 
those  pretty  pastoral  walks,  long  ago,  about  Mackery 
End,  in  Hertfordshire. 


MODERN  GALLANTRY. 

In  comparing  modern  with  ancient  manners,  we  are 
pleased  to  compliment  ourselves  upon  the  point  of  gal- 
lantry ;  a  certain  obsequiousness,  or  deferential  respect, 
which  we  are  supposed  to  pay  to  females,  as  females. 

I  shall  believe  that  this  principle  actuates  our  con- 


128  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

duct,  when  I  can  forget  that,  in  the  nineteenth  century 
of  the  era  from  which  we  date  our  civility,  we  are  but 
just  beginning  to  leave  off  the  very  frequent  practice  of 
whipping  females  in  public,  in  common  with  the  coarsest 
male  offenders. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  influential,  when  I  can  shut 
my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  in  England  women  are  still  oc- 
casionally— hanged. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  actresses  are  no  longer 
subject  to  be  hissed  off  a  stage  by  gentlemen. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  Dorimant  hands  a  fish-wife 
across  the  kennel ;  or  assists  the  apple-woman  to  pick  up 
lier  wandering  fruit,  which  some  unlucky  dray  has  just 
dissipated. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  the  Dorimants  in  humbler 
life,  who  would  be  thought  in  their  way  notable  adepts 
in  this  refinement,  shall  act  upon  it  in  places  where  they 
are  not  known,  or  think  themselves  not  observed — when 
I  shall  see  the  traveler  for  some  rich  tradesman  part  with 
his  admired  box-coat,  to  spread  it  over  the  defenseless 
shoulders  of  the  poor  woman,  who  is  passing  to  her 
parish  on  the  roof  of  the  same  stage-coach  with  him, 
drenched  in  the  rain — when  I  shall  no  longer  see  a 
woman  standing  up  in  the  pit  of  a  London  theatre,  till 
she  is  sick  and  faint  with  the  exertion,  with  men  about 
her,  seated  at  their  ease,  and  jeering  at  her  distress;  till 
one,  that  seems  to  have  more  manners  or  conscience 
than  the  rest,  significantly  declares  "  she  should  be  wel- 
come to  his  seat,  if  she  were  a  little  younger  and  hand- 
somer." Place  this  dapper  warehouseman,  or  that  rider, 
in  a  circle  of  their  own  female  acquaintance,  and  you 
shall  confess  you  have  not  seen  a  politer-bred  man  in 
Lothbury. 


MODERN  GALLANTRY.  129 

Lastly,  I  shall  begin  to  believe  that  there  is  some 
such  principle  influencing  our  conduct,  when  more  than 
one-half  of  the  drudgery  and  coarse  servitude  of  the 
world  shall  cease  to  be  performed  by  women. 

Until  that  day  comes,  I  shall  never  believe  this 
boasted  point  to  be  anything  more  than  a  conventional 
fiction ;  a  pageant  got  up  between  the  sexes,  in  a  certain 
rank,  and  at  a  certain  time  of  life,  in  which  both  find 
their  account  equally, 

I  shall  be  even  disposed  to  rank  it  among  the  salu- 
tary fictions  of  life,  when  in  polite  circles  I  shall  see  the 
same  attentions  paid  to  age  as  to  youth,  to  homely  feat- 
ures as  to  handsome,  to  coarse  complexions  as  to  clear 
— to  the  woman,  as  she  is  a  woman,  not  as  she  is  a 
beauty,  a  fortune,  or  a  title. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  something  more  than  a  name, 
when  a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a  well-dressed  com- 
pany can  advert  to  the  topic  of  female  old  age  without 
exciting,  and  intending  to  excite,  a  sneer — when  the 
phrases  "  antiquated  virginity,"  and  such  a  one  has 
"  overstood  her  market,"  pronounced  in  good  company, 
shall  raise  immediate  offense  in  man,  or  woman^  that 
shall  hear  them  spoken. 

Joseph  Paice,  of  Bread  Street  Hill,  merchant,  and 
one  of  the  Directors  of  the  South-Sea  Company — the 
same  to  whom  Edwards,  the  Shakespeare  commentator, 
has  addressed  a  fine  sonnet — was  the  only  pattern  of 
consistent  gallantry  I  have  met  with.  He  took  me 
under  his  shelter  at  an  early  age,  and  bestowed  some 
pains  upon  me.  I  owe  to  his  precepts  and  example 
whatever  there  is  of  the  man  of  business  (and  that  is 
not  much)  in  my  composition.  It  was  not  his  fault  that 
I  did  not  profit  more.    Though  bred  a  Presbyterian,  and 

9 


130  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

brought  up  a  merchant,  he  was  the  finest  gentleman  of 
his  time.  He  had  not  one  system  of  attention  to  females 
in  the  drawing-room,  and  another  in  the  shop,  or  at  the 
stall.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  made  no  distinction.  But 
he  never  lost  sight  of  sex,  or  overlooked  it  in  the  casu- 
alties of  a  disadvantageous  situation.  I  have  seen  him 
stand  bareheaded — smile  if  you  please — to  a  poor 
servant-girl,  while  she  has  been  inquiring  of  him  the 
way  to  some  street — in  such  a  posture  of  unforced  civil- 
ity, as  neither  to  embarrass  her  in  the  acceptance,  nor 
himself  in  the  offer,  of  it.  He  was  no  dangler,  in  the 
common  acceptation  of  the  word,  after  women ;  but  he 
reverenced  and  upheld,  in  every  form  in  which  it  came 
before  him,  womanhood,  I  have  seen  him — nay,  smile 
not — tenderly  escorting  a  market-woman,  whom  he  had 
encountered  in  a  shower,  exalting  his  umbrella  over  her 
poor  basket  of  fruit,  that  it  might  receive  no  damage, 
with  as  much  carefulness  as  if  she  had  been  a  countess. 
To  the  reverend  form  of  Female  Eld  he  would  yield  the 
wall  (though  it  were  to  an  ancient  beggar-woman)  with 
more  ceremony  than  we  can  afford  to  show  our  gran- 
dams.  He  was  the  Preux  Chevalier  of  Age ;  the  Sir 
Calidore,  or  Sir  Tristan,  to  those  who  have  no  Calidores 
or  Tristans  to  defend  them.  The  roses,  that  had  long 
faded  thence,  still  bloomed  for  him  in  those  withered 
and  yellow  cheeks. 

He  was  never  married,  but  in  his  youth  he  paid  his 
addresses  to  the  beautiful  Susan  Winstanley — old  Win- 
stanley's  daughter,  of  Clapton — who,  dying  in  the  early 
days  of  their  courtship,  confirmed  in  him  the  resolution 
of  perpetual  bachelorship.  It  was  during  their  short 
courtship,  he  told  me,  that  he  had  been  one  day  treating 
his  mistress  with  a  profusion  of  civil  speeches— the  com- 


MODERN  GALLANTRY.  131 

mon  gallantries — to  which  kind  of  thing  she  had  hitherto 
manifested  no  repugnance — but  in  this  instance  with  no 
effect.  He  could  not  obtain  from  her  a  decent  acknowl- 
edgment in  return.  She  rather  seemed  to  resent  his 
compliments.  He  could  not  set  it  down  to  caprice,  for 
the  lady  had  always  shown  herself  above  that  littleness. 
When  he  ventured  on  the  following  day,  finding  her  a 
little  better  humored,  to  expostulate  with  her  on  her 
coldness  of  yesterday,  she  confessed,  with  her  usual 
frankness,  that  she  had  no  sort  of  dislike  to  his  atten- 
tions ;  that  she  could  even  endure  some  high-flown  com- 
pliments ;  that  a  young  woman  placed  in  her  situation  had 
a  right  to  expect  all  sort  of  civil  things  said  to  her ;  that 
she  hoped  she  could  digest  a  dose  of  adulation,  short  oi 
iusincerity,  with  as  little  injury  to  her  humility  as  most 
young  women;  but  that — a  little  before  he  had  com- 
menced his  compliments  —  she  had  overheard  him  by 
accident,  in  rather  rough  language,  rating  a  young  wom- 
an who  had  not  brought  home  his  cravats  quite  to  the 
appointed  time,  and  she  thought  to  herself,  "  As  I  am 
Miss  Susan  Winstanley,  and  a  young  lady — a  reputed 
beauty,  and  known  to  be  a  fortune — I  can  have  my  choice 
of  the  finest  speeches  from  the  mouth  of  this  very  fine 
gentleman  who  is  courting  me— but  if  I  had  been  poor 
Mary  Such-a-one  (naming  the  milliner) — and  had  failed 
of  bringing  home  the  cravats  to  the  appointed  hour — 
though  perhaps  I  had  sat  up  half  the  night  to  forward 
them— what  sort  of  compliments  should  I  have  received 
then  ? — And  my  woman's  pride  came  to  my  assistance ; 
and  1  thought  that,  if  it  were  only  done  to  do  me  honor, 
a  female,  like  myself,  might  have  received  handsomer 
usage;  and  I  was  determined  not  to  accept  any  fine 
speeches,  to  tho  compromise  of  that  sex,  the  belonging 


132  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

to  which  wa8,  after  all,  my  strongest  claim  and  title  to 
them."  I  think  the  lady  discovered  both  generosity,  and 
a  just  way  of  thinking,  in  this  rebuke  which  she  gave 
her  lover ;  and  I  have  sometimes  imagined  that  the  un- 
common strain  of  courtesy,  which  through  life  regulated 
the  actions  and  behavior  of  my  friend  toward  all  of 
womankind  indiscriminately,  owed  its  happy  origin  to 
this  seasonable  lesson  from  the  lips  of  his  lamented  mis- 
tress. 

I  wish  the  whole  female  world  would  entertain  the 
same  notion  of  these  things  that  Miss  Winstanley  showed. 
Then  we  should  see  something  of  the  spirit  of  consistent 
gallantry ;  and  no  longer  witness  the  anomaly  of  the  same 
man — a  pattern  of  true  politeness  to  a  wife — of  cold 
contempt,  or  rudeness,  to  a  sister — the  idolater  of  his  fe- 
male mistress — the  disparager  and  despiser  of  his  no  less 
female  aunt,  or  unfortunate — still  female — maiden  cousin. 
Just  so  much  respect  as  a  woman  derogates  from  her  own 
sex,  in  whatever  condition  placed — her  handmaid,  or  de- 
pendent— she  deserves  to  have  diminished  from  herself 
on  that  score;  and  probably  will  feel  the  diminution 
when  youth,  and  beauty,  and  advantages,  not  inseparable 
from  sex,  shall  lose  of  their  attraction.  What  a  woman 
should  demand  of  a  man  in  courtship,  or  after  it,  is  first — 
respect  for  her  as  she  is  a  woman ;  and  next  to  that — to 
be  respected  by  him  above  all  other  women.  But  let  her 
stand  upon  her  female  character  as  upon  a  foundation ; 
and  let  the  attentions,  incident  to  individual  preference, 
be  so  many  pretty  additaments  and  ornaments — as  many, 
and  as  fanciful,  as  you  please — to  that  main  structure. 
Let  her  first  lesson  be,  with  sweet  Susan  Winstanley — ^to 
reverence  Tier  sex. 


OLD   BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.    133 


THE  OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE. 

I  WAS  born,  and  passed  the  first  seven  years  of  my 
life,  in  the  Temple.  Its  church,  its  halls,  its  gardens,  its 
fountain,  its  river,  I  had  almost  said — for  in  those  young 
years,  what  was  this  king  of  rivers  to  me  but  a  stream 
that  watered  our  pleasant  places  ? — these  are  of  my  old- 
est recollections.  I  repeat,  to  this  day,  no  verses  to  my- 
self more  frequently,  or  with  kindlier  emotion,  than  those 
of  Spenser,  where  he  speaks  of  this  spot : 

"  There  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers, 
The  which  on  Themmes  brode  aged  back  doth  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 
There  whylome  wont  the  Temple  knights  to  bide, 
Till  they  decayed  through  pride." 

Indeed,  it  is  the  most  elegant  spot  in  the  metropolis. 
What  a  transition  for  a  countryman  visiting  London  for 
the  first  time — the  passing  from  the  crowded  Strand  or 
Fleet  Street,  by  unexpected  avenue^,  into  its  magnificent, 
ample  squares,  its  classic  green  recesses !  What  a  cheer- 
ful, liberal  look  hath  that  portion  of  it  which,  from  three 
sides,  overlooks  the  greater  garden ;  that  goodly  pile 

"  Of  building  strong,  albeit  of  Paper  hight," 

confronting  with  massy  contrast,  the  lighter,  older,  more 
fantastically  shrouded  one,  named  of  Harcourt,  with  the 
cheerful  Crown-office  Row  (place  of  my  kindly  engen- 
dure),  right  opposite  the  stately  stream,  which  washes 
the  garden-foot  with  her  yet  scarcely  trade-polluted 
waters,  and  seems  but  just  weaned  from  her  Twickenham 
Naiades  I  A  man  would  give  something  to  have  been 
born  in  such  places.     What  a  collegiate  aspect  has  that 


134  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

fine  Elizabethan  hall,  where  the  fountain  plays,  which  I 
have  made  to  rise  and  fall,  how  many  times! — to  the  as- 
toundment  of  the  young  urchins,  my  contemporaries, 
who,  not  being  able  to  guess  at  its  recondite  machinery, 
were  almost  tempted  to  hail  the  wondrous  work  as  mag- 
ic I  What  an  antique  air  had  the  now  almost  effaced  sun- 
dials, with  their  moral  inscriptions,  seeming  coevals  with 
that  Time  which  they  measured,  and  to  take  their  reve- 
lations of  its  flight  immediately  from  heaven,  holding 
correspondence  with  the  fountain  of  light !  How  would 
the  dark  line  steal  imperceptibly  on,  watched  by  the 
eye  of  childhood,  eager  to  detect  its  movement,  never 
catched,  nice  as  an  evanescent  cloud,  or  the  first  arrests 
of  sleep ! 

"  Ah  !  yet  doth  beauty  like  a  dial-hand 
Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived  ! " 

What  a  dead  thing  is  a  clock,  with  its  ponderous  em- 
bowelments  of  lead  and  brass,  its  pert  or  solemn  dull- 
ness of  communication,  compared  with  the  simple  altar- 
like structure  and  silent  heart-language  of  the  old  dial ! 
It  stood  as  the  garden-god  of  Christian  gardens.  Why 
is  it  almost  everywhere  vanished?  Tf  its  business  use 
be  superseded  by  more  elaborate  inventions,  its  moral 
uses,  its  beauty,  might  have  pleaded  for  its  coutinuance. 
It  spoke  of  moderate  labors,  of  pleasures  not  protracted 
after  sunset,  of  temperance  and  good  hours.  It  was  the 
primitive  clock,  the  horologe  of  the  first  world.  Adam 
could  scarce  have  missed  it  in  Paradise.  It  was  the 
measure  appropriate  for  sweet  plants  and  flowers  to 
spring  by,  for  the  birds  to  apportion  their  silver  war- 
blings  by,  for  flocks  to  pasture  and  be  led  to  fold  by. 
The  shepherd  "  carved  it  out  quaintly  in  the  sun ;  "  and, 


OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.   135 

turning  philosopher  by  the  very  occupation,  provided  it 
with  mottoes  more  touching  than  tombstones.  It  was  a 
pretty  device  of  the  gardener,  recorded  by  Marvell,  who, 
in  the  days  of  artificial  gardening,  made  a  dial  out  of 
herbs  and  flowers.  I  must  quote  his  verses  a  little 
higher  up,  for  they  are  full,  as  all  his  serious  poetry 
was,  of  a  witty  delicacy.  They  will  not  come  in  awk- 
wardly, I  hope,  in  a  talk  of  fountains  and  sundials.  He 
is  speaking  of  sweet  garden-scenes : 

**■  What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead  ? 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head. 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine. 
The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 
Into  ray  hands  themselves  do  reach. 
Stumbling  on  melons  as  I  pass, 
Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 
Meanwhile  the  mind,  from  pleasure  less 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness. 
The  mind,  that  ocean,  where  each  kind 
Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find  ; 
Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these. 
Far  other  worlds  and  other  seas  ; 
Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 
Here  at  the  fountain's  sliding  foot, 
Or  at  some  fruit-tree's  mossy  root, 
Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 
My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide ; 
There  like  a  bird  it  sits  and  sings, 
Then  whets  and  claps  its  silver  wings, 
And,  till  prepared  for  longer  flight. 
Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light. 


136  THE  ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

How  well  the  skillful  gardener  drew, 
Of  flowers  and  herbs,  this  dial  new ! 
Where  from  above  the  milder  sun 
Does  through  a  fragrant  zodiac  run : 
And,  as  it  works,  the  industrious  bee 
Computes  its  time  as  well  as  we. 
How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 
Be  reckoned  but  with  herbs  and  flowers  ?  "  * 

The  artificial  fountains  of  tlie  metropolis  are,  in  like 
manner,  fast  vanishing.  Most  of  them  are  dried  up  or 
bricked  over.  Yet,  where  one  is  left,  as  in  that  little 
green  nook  behind  the  South-Sea  House,  what  a  fresh- 
ness it  gives  to  the  dreary  pile!  Four  little  winged 
marble  boys  used  to  play  their  virgin  fancies,  spouting 
out  ever-fresh  streams  from  their  innocent  wanton  lips, 
in  the  square  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  when  I  was  no  bigger 
than  they  were  figured.  They  are  gone,  and  the  spring 
choked  up.  The  fashion,  they  tell  me,  is  gone  by,  and 
these  things  are  esteemed  childish.  Why  not,  then,  grat- 
ify children  by  letting  them  stand  ?  Lawyers,  I  suppose, 
were  children  once.  They  are  awakening  images  to  them 
at  least.  Why  must  everything  smack  of  man  and  man- 
nish ?  Is  the  world  all  grown  up  ?  Is  childhood  dead  ? 
Or  is  there  not  in  the  bosoms  of  the  wisest  and  the  best 
some  of  the  child's  heart  left,  to  respond  to  its  earliest 
enchantments?  The  figures  were  grotesque.  Are  the 
stiflp-wigged  living  figures,  that  still  flitter  and  chatter 
about  that  area,  less  Gothic  in  appearance  ?  Or  is  the 
splutter  of  their  hot  rhetoric  one  half  so  refreshing  and 
innocent  as  the  little  cool,  playful  streams  those  exploded 
cherubs  uttered  ? 

*  From  a  copy  of  verses  entitled  **  The  Garden." 


OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.   137 

They  have  lately  gothioized  the  entrance  to  the  Inner 
Temple  Hall,  and  the  library  front ;  to  assimilate  them, 
I  suppose,  to  the  body  of  the  hall,  which  they  do  not  at 
all  resemble.  What  is  become  of  the  winged  horse  that 
stood  over  the  former  ?  a  stately  arms  I  And  who  has 
removed  those  frescoes  of  the  Virtues,  which  Italianized 
the  end  of  the  Paper-buildings  ? — my  first  hint  of  alle- 
gory !  They  must  account  to  me  for  these  things,  which 
I  miss  so  greatly. 

The  terrace  is,  indeed,  left,  which  we  used  to  call  the 
parade ;  but  the  traces  are  passed  away  of  the  footsteps 
which  made  its  pavement  awful !  It  is  become  common 
and  profane.  The  old  benchers  had  it  almost  sacred  to 
themselves,  in  the  fore-part  of  the  day  at  least.  They 
might  not  be  sided  or  jostled.  Their  air  and  dress  as- 
serted the  parade.  You  left  wide  spaces  betwixt  you 
when  you  passed  them.    We  walk  on  even  terms  with 

their  successors.    The  roguish  eye  of  J ^11,  ever  ready 

to  be  delivered  of  a  jest,  almost  invites  a  stranger  to  vie 
a  repartee  with  it.  But  what  insolent  familiar  durst 
have  mated  Thomas  Coventry? — whose  person  was  a 
quadrate,  his  step  massy  and  elephantine,  his  face  square 
as  the  lion's,  his  gait  peremptory  and  path-keeping,  in- 
divertible from  his  way  as  a  moving  column,  the  scare- 
crow of  his  inferiors,  the  browbeater  of  equals  and  su- 
periors, who  made  a  solitude  of  children  wherever  he 
came,  for  they  fled  his  insufferable  presence  as  they 
would  have  shunned  an  Elisha  bear.  His  growl  was  as 
thunder  in  their  ears,  whether  he  spake  to  them  in  mirth 
or  in  rebuke — his  invitatory  notes  being,  indeed,  of  all, 
the  most  repulsive  and  horrid.  Clouds  of  snuff,  aggravat- 
ing the  natural  terrors  of  his  speech,  broke  from  each 
majestic  nostril,  darkening  the  air.    He  took  it,  not  by 


138  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

pinches,  but  a  palmful  at  once,  diving  for  it  under  the 
mighty  flaps  of  his  old-fashioned  waistcoat-pocket;  his 
waistcoat  red  and  angry,  his  coat  dark  rappee,  tinctured 
by  dye  original,  and  by  adjuncts,  with  buttons  of  obso- 
lete gold.    And  so  he  paced  the  terrace. 

By  his  side  a  milder  form  was  sometimes  to  be  seen ; 
the  pensive  gentility  of  Samuel  Salt.  They  were  co- 
evals, and  had  nothing  but  that  and  their  benchership  in 
common.  In  politics  Salt  was  a  Whig,  and  Coventry  a 
stanch  Tory.  Many  a  sarcastic  growl  did  the  latter 
cast  out— for  Coventry  had  a  rough,  spinous  humor — at 
the  political  confederates  of  his  associate,  which  re- 
bounded from  the  gentle  bosom  of  the  latter  like  cannon- 
balls  from  wool.     You  could  not  ruffle  Samuel  Salt. 

S.  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  clever  man, 
and  of  excellent  discernment  in  the  chamber  practice  of 
the  law.  I  suspect  his  knowledge  did  not  amount  to 
much.  When  a  case  of  difficult  disposition  of  money, 
testamentary  or  otherwise,  came  before  him,  he  ordina- 
rily handed  it  over  with  a  few  instructions  to  his  man 
Lovel,  who  was  a  quick  little  fellow,  and  would  dispatch 
it  out  of  hand  by  the  light  of  natural  understanding,  of 
which  he  had  an  uncommon  share.  It  was  incredible 
what  repute  for  talents  S.  enjoyed  by  the  mere  trick  of 
gravity.  He  was  a  shy  man ;  a  child  might  pose  him  in 
a  minute — indolent  and  procrastinating  to  the  last  de- 
gree. Yet  men  would  give  him  credit  for  vast  applica- 
tion, in  spite  of  himself.  He  was  not  to  be  trusted  with 
himself  with  impunity.  He  never  dressed  for  a  dinner- 
party but  he  forgot  his  sword — they  wore  swords  then — 
or  some  other  necessary  part  of  his  equipage.  Lovel 
had  his  eye  upon  him  on  all  these  occasions,  and  ordina- 
rily gave  him  his  cue.    If  there  was  anything  which  he 


OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.  139 

could  speak  unseasonably,  he  was  sure  to  do  it.  He 
was  to  dine  at  a  relative's  of  the  unfortunate  Miss 
Blandy  on  the  day  of  her  execution — and  L.,  who  had  a 
wary  foresight  of  his  probable  hallucinations,  before  he 
set  out,  schooled  him  with  great  anxiety  not  in  any  pos- 
sible manner  to  allude  to  her  story  that  day.  S.  prom- 
ised faithfully  to  observe  the  injunction.  He  had  not 
been  seated  in  the  parlor,  where  the  company  was  ex- 
pecting the  dinner  -  summons,  four  minutes,  when,  a 
pause  in  the  conversation  ensuing,  he  got  up,  looked  out 
of  window,  and  pulling  down  his  ruffles — an  ordinary 
motion  with  him — observed,  "it  was  a  gloomy  day,"  and 
added,  ''Miss  Blandy  must  be  hanged  by  this  time,  I 
suppose."  Instances  of  this  sort  were  perpetual.  Yet 
S.  was  thought  by  some  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  time 
a  fit  person  to  be  consulted,  not  alone  in  matters  pertain- 
ing to  the  law,  but  in  the  ordinary  niceties  and  embar- 
rassments of  conduct — from  force  of  manner  entirely. 
He  never  laughed.  He  had  the  same  good  fortune 
among  the  female  world — was  a  known  toast  with  the 
ladies,  and  one  or  two  are  said  to  have  died  for  love  of 
him — I  suppose,  because  he  never  trifled  or  talked  gal- 
lantry with  them,  or  paid  them,  indeed,  hardly  common 
attentions.  He  had  a  fine  face  and  person,  but  wanted, 
meth ought,  the  spirit  that  should  have  shown  them  off 
with  advantage  to  the  women.     His  eye  lacked  lustre. 

Not  so  thought  Susan  P ;  who,  at  the  advanced  age 

of  sixty,  was  seen,  in  the  cold  evening-time,  unaccom- 
panied, wetting  the  pavement  of  B d  Kow,  with  tears 

that  fell  in  drops  which  might  be  heard,  because  her 
friend  had  died  that  day — he,  whom  she  had  pursued 
with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  last  forty  years — a  pas- 
sion, which  years  could  not  extinguish  or  abate ;  nor  the 


140  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

long-resolved,  yet  gently-enforced,  puttings  off  of  unre- 
lenting bachelorhood  dissuade  from  its  cherished  pur- 
pose.   Mild  Susan  P ,  thou  hast  now  thy  friend  in 

heaven  I 

Thomas  Coventry  was  a  cadet  of  the  noble  family  of 
that  name.  He  passed  his  youth  in  contracted  circum- 
stances, which  gave  him  early  those  parsimonious  habits 
which  in  after-life  never  forsook  him ;  so  that,  with  one 
windfall  or  another,  about  the  time  I  knew  him  he  was 
master  of  four  or  five  hundred  thousand  pounds ;  nor 
did  he  look,  or  walk,  worth  a  moidore  less.  He  lived 
in  a  gloomy  house  opposite  the  pump  in  Serjeant's  Inn, 
Fleet  Street.  J.,  the  counsel,  is  doing  self-imposed  pen- 
ance in  it,  for  what  reason  I  divine  not,  at  this  day.  0. 
had  an  agreeable  seat  at  North  Cray,  where  he  seldom 
spent  above  a  day  or  two  at  a  time  in  the  summer ;  but 
preferred,  during  the  hot  months,  standing  at  his  win- 
dow in  this  damp,  close,  well-like  mansion,  to  watch,  as 
he  said,  "  the  maids  drawing  water  all  day  long."  I  sus- 
pect he  had  his  within-door  reasons  for  the  preference. 
Hie  currus  et  armafuere.  He  might  think  his  treasures 
more  safe.  His  house  had  the  aspect  of  a  strong-box. 
0.  was  a  close  hunks — a  hoarder  rather  than  a  miser — 
or,  if  a  miser,  none  of  the  mad  Elwes  breed,  who  have 
brought  discredit  upon  a  character,  which  cannot  exist 
without  certain  admirable  points  of  steadiness  and  unity 
of  purpose.  One  may  hate  a  true  miser,  but  cannot,  I 
suspect,  so  easily  despise  him.  By  taking  care  of  the 
pence,  he  is  often  enabled  to  part  with  the  pounds,  upon 
a  scale  that  leaves  us  careless,  generous  fellows  halting 
at  an  immeasurable  distance  behind.  0.  gave  away 
thirty  thousand  pounds  at  once  in  his  lifetime  to  a  blind 
charity.     His  housekeeping  was  severely  looked  after, 


OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.  141 

but  he  kept  the  table  of  a  gentleman.  He  would  know 
who  came  in  and  who  went  out  of  his  house,  but  his 
kitchen-chimney  was  never  suffered  to  freeze. 

Salt  was  his  opposite  in  this,  as  in  all — never  knew 
what  he  was  worth  in  the  world;  and  having  but  a 
competency  for  his  rank,  which  his  indolent  habits  were 
little  calculated  to  improve,  might  have  suffered  severely 
if  he  had  not  had  honest  people  about  him.  Lovel  took 
care  of  everything.  He  was  at  once  his  clerk,  his  good 
servant,  his  dresser,  his  friend,  his  "  flapper,"  his  guide, 
stop-watch,  auditor,  treasurer.  He  did  nothing  without 
consulting  Lovel,  or  failed  in  anything  without  expect- 
ing and  fearing  his  admonishing.  He  put  himself  almost 
too  much  in  his  hands,  had  they  not  been  the  purest  in 
the  world.  He  resigned  his  title  almost  to  respect  as  a 
master,  if  L.  could  ever  have  forgotten  for  a  moment 
that  he  was  a  servant. 

I  knew  this  Lovel.  He  was  a  man  of  an  incorrigible 
and  losing  honesty.  A  good  fellow  withal,  and  ''  would 
strike."  In  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  he  never  con- 
sidered inequalities,  or  calculated  the  number  of  his  op- 
ponents. He  once  wrested  a  sword  out  of  the  hand  of 
a  man  of  quality  that  had  drawn  upon  him ;  and  pom- 
meled him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it.  The  swordsman 
had  offered  insult  to  a  female — an  occasion  upon  which 
no  odds  against  him  could  have  prevented  the  interfer- 
ence of  Lovel.  He  would  stand  next  day  bareheaded  to 
the  same  person,  modestly  to  excuse  his  interference — 
for  L.  never  forgot  rank,  where  something  better  was 
not  concerned.  L.  was  the  liveliest  little  fellow  breath- 
ing, had  a  face  as  gay  as  Garrick's,  whom  he  was  said 
greatly  to  resemble  (I  have  a  portrait  of  him  which  con- 
firms it),  possessed  a  fine  turn  for  humorous  poetry — next 


142  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

to  Swift  and  Prior — moulded  heads  in  clay  or  plaster  of 
Paris  to  admiration,  by  the  dint  of  natural  genius  mere- 
ly; turned  cribbage- boards,  and  such  small  cabinet  toys 
to  perfection ;  took  a  hand  at  quadrille  or  bowls  with 
equal  facility ;  made  punch  better  than  any  man  of  his 
degree  in  England ;  had  the  merriest  quips  and  conceits; 
and  was  altogether  as  brimful  of  rogueries  and  inventions 
as  you  could  desire.  He  was  a  brother  of  the  angle, 
moreover,  and  just  such  a  free,  hearty,  honest  compan- 
ion as  Mr.  Izaak  Walton  would  have  chosen  to  go  a- fish- 
ing with.  I  saw  him  in  his  old  age  and  the  decay  of  his 
faculties,  palsy-smitten,  in  the  last  sad  stage  of  human 
weakness — '^  a  remnant  most  forlorn  of  what  he  was  " — 
yet  even  then  his  eye  would  light  up  upon  the  mention 
of  his  favorite  Garrick.  He  was  greatest,  he  would  say, 
in  Bayes — "  was  upon  the  stage  nearly  throughout  the 
whole  performance,  and  as  busy  as  a  bee."  At  intervals, 
too,  he  would  speak  of  his  former  life,  and  how  he  came 
up  a  little  boy  from  Lincoln  to  go  to  service,  and  how  his 
mother  cried  at  parting  with  him,  and  how  he  returned, 
after  some  few  years'  absence,  in  his  smart,  new  livery, 
to  see  her,  and  she  blessed  herself  at  the  change,  and 
could  hardly  be  brought  to  believe  that  it  was  "her  own 
bairn."  And  then,  the  excitement  subsiding,  he  would 
weep,  till  I  have  wished  that  sad  second-childhood  might 
have  a  mother  still  to  lay  its  head  upon  her  lap.  But  the 
common  mother  of  us  all  in  no  long  time  after  received 
bim  gently  into  hers. 

With  Coventry,  and  with  Salt,  in  their  walks  upon 
the  terrace,  most  commonly  Peter  Pierson  would  join  to 
make  up  a  third.  They  did  not  walk  linked  arm-in-arm 
in  those  days — "as  now  our  stout  triumvirs  sweep  the 
streets  " — but  generally  with  both  hands  folded  behind 


OLD  BENCHERS  OF  THE  INNER  TEMPLE.  143 

them  for  state,  or  with  one  at  least  behind,  the  other  car- 
rying a  cane.  P.  was  a  benevolent  but  not  a  prepossess- 
ing man.  He  had  that  in  his  face  which  you  could  not 
term  unhappiness ;  it  rather  implied  an  incapacity  of  be- 
ing happy.  His  cheeks  were  colorless  even  to  whiteness. 
His  look  was  uninviting,  resembling  (but  without  his 
sourness)  that  of  our  great  philanthropist.  I  know  that 
he  did  good  acts,  but  I  could  never  make  out  what  he 
was.  Contemporary  with  these,  but  subordinate,  was 
Daines  Barrington — another  oddity — ^he  walked  burly 
and  square — in  imitation,  I  think,  of  Coventry — howbeit 
he  attained  not  to  the  dignity  of  his  prototype.  Never- 
theless, he  did  pretty  well,  upon  the  strength  of  being  a 
tolerable  antiquarian,  and  having  a  brother  a  bishop. 
When  the  account  of  his  year's  treasurership  came  to  be 
audited,  the  following  singular  charge  was  unanimously 
disallowed  by  the  bench :  "  Item,  disbursed  Mr.  Allen,  the 
gardener,  twenty  shillings,  for  stuff  to  poison  the  spar- 
rows, by  ray  orders."  Next  to  him  was  old  Barton — a 
jolly  negation,  who  took  upon  him  the  ordering  of  the 
bills  of  fare  for  the  Parliament  chamber, where  the  bench- 
ers dine — answering  to  the  combination  rooms  at  Col- 
lege— much  to  the  easement  of  his  less  epicurean  breth- 
ren. I  know  nothing  more  of  Idm. — Then  Kead,  and 
Twopeny — Read,  good-humored  and  personable — Two- 
peny,  good-humored,  but  thin,  and  felicitous  in  jests  upon 
his  own  figure.  If  T.  was  thin,  Wharry  was  attenuated 
and  fleeting.  Many  must  remember  him  (for  he  was 
rather  of  later  date)  and  his  singular  gait,  which  was  per- 
formed by  three  steps  and  a  jump  regularly  succeeding. 
The  steps  were  little  efforts,  like  that  of  a  child  begin- 
ning to  walk ;  the  jump  comparatively  vigorous,  as  a  foot 
to  an  inch.    Where  he  learned  this  figure,  or  what  oc- 


144  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

casioned  it,  I  could  never  discover.  It  was  neither  grace- 
ful in  itself,  nor  seemed  to  answer  the  purpose  any  bet- 
ter than  common  walking.  The  extreme  tenuity  of  his 
frame,  I  suspect,  set  him  upon  it.  It  was  a  trial  of  pois- 
ing. Twopeny  would  often  rally  him  upon  his  leanness, 
and  hail  him  as  brother  Lusty ;  but  W.  had  no  relish 
of  a  joke.  His  features  were  spiteful.  I  have  heard  that 
he  would  pinch  his  cat's  ears  extremely,  when  anything 
had  offended  him.  Jackson — the  omniscient  Jackson  he 
was  called — was  of  this  period.  He  had  the  reputation 
of  possessing  more  multifarious  knowledge  than  any  man 
of  his  time.  He  was  the  Friar  Bacon  of  the  less  literate 
portion  of  the  Temple.  I  remember  a  pleasant  passage, 
of  the  cook  applying  to  him,  with  much  formality  of 
apology,  for  instructions  how  to  write  down  edge  bone 
of  beef  in  his  bill  of  commons.  He  was  supposed  to 
know,  if  any  man  in  the  world  did.  He  decided  the  or- 
thography to  be — as  I  have  given  it — fortifying  his  au- 
thority with  such  anatomical  reasons  as  dismissed  the 
manciple  (for  the  time)  learned  and  happy.  Some  do 
spell  it  yet,  perversely,  aitcTi  bone,  from  a  fanciful  resem- 
blance between  its  shape  and  that  of  the  aspirate  so  de- 
nominated. I  had  almost  forgotten  Mingay  with  the  iron 
hand — but  he  was  somewhat  later.  He  had  lost  his  right 
hand  by  some  accident,  and  supplied  it  with  a  grappling- 
hook,  which  he  wielded  with  a  tolerable  adroitness.  I 
detected  the  substitute,  before  I  was  old  enough  to  rea- 
son whether  it  were  artificial  or  not.  I  remember  the 
astonishment  it  raised  in  me.  He  was  a  blustering,  loud- 
•  talking  person ;  and  I  reconciled  the  phenomenon  to  my 
ideas  as  an  emblem  of  power — somewhat  like  the  horns 
in  the  forehead  of  Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Baron  Ma- 
seres,  wlio  walks  (or  did  till  very  lately)  in  the  costume 


OLD   BENCHERS   OF  THE  INiVER  TEMPLE.   145 

of  the  reign  of  George  II.,  closes  my  imperfect  recollec- 
tions of  the  old  benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple. 

Fantastic  forms,  whither  are  ye  fled  ?  Or,  if  the  like 
of  you  exist,  why  exist  they  no  more  for  me  ?  Ye  inex- 
plicable, half -understood  appearances,  why  comes  in  rea- 
son to  tear  away  the  preternatural  mist,  bright  or  gloomy, 
that  enshrouded  you  ?  Why  make  ye  so  sorry  a  figure 
in  my  relation,  who  made  up  to  me — to  my  childish  eyes 
— the  mythology  of  the  Temple  ?  In  those  days  I  saw 
gods,  as  "  old  men  covered  with  a  mantle,"  walking  upon 
the  earth.  Let  the  dreams  of  classic  idolatry  perish — 
extinct  be  the  fairies  and  fairy  trumpery  of  legendary 
fabling,  in  the  heart  of  childhood,  there  will,  forever, 
spring  up  a  well  of  innocent  or  wholesome  superstition — 
the  seeds  of  exaggeration  will  be  busy  there,  and  vital — 
from  every-day  forms  educing  the  unknown  and  the  un- 
common. Iq  that  little  Goshen  there  will  be  light,  when 
the  grown  world  flounders  about  in  the  darkness  of  sense 
and  materiality.  While  childhood,  and  while  dreams,  re- 
ducing childhood,  shall  be  left.  Imagination  shall  not  have 
spread  her  holy  wings  totally  to  fly  the  earth. 

P.  S. — I  have  done  injustice  to  the  soft  shade  of 
Samuel  Salt.  See  what  it  is  to  trust  to  imperfect  mem- 
ory, and  the  erring  notices  of  childhood !  Yet  I  protest 
I  always  thought  that  he  had  been  a  bachelor!  This 
gentleman,  R.  1^.  informs  me,  married  young,  and  losing 
his  lady  in  childbed,  within  the  first  year  of  their  union, 
fell  into  a  deep  melancholy,  from  the  effects  of  which, 
probably,  he  never  thoroughly  recovered.  In  what  a 
new  light  does  this  place  his  rejection  (oh,  call  it  by  a 

gentler  name!)  of  mild  Susan  P- ,  unraveling  into 

beauty  certain  peculiarities  of  this  very  shy  and  retiring 
character !     Henceforth  let  no  one  receive  the  narratives 

10 


146  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

of  Elia  for  true  records !  They  are,  in  truth,  but  shadows 
of  fact — verisimilitudes,  not  verities — or  sitting  but  upon 
the  remote  edges  and  outskirts  of  history.  He  is  no 
such  honest  chronicler  as  R.  N.,  and  would  have  done 
better,  perhaps,  to  have  consulted  that  gentleman,  before 
he  sent  these  incondite  reminiscences  to  press.  But  the 
worthy  sub-treasurer — who  respects  his  old  and  his  new 
masters — would  but  have  been  puzzled  at  the  indecorous 
liberties  of  Elia.  The  good  man  wots  not,  perad venture, 
of  the  license  which  Magazines  have  arrived  at  in  this 
plain-speaking  age,  or  hardly  dreams  of  their  existence 
beyond  the  Gentleman^ — ^his  furthest  monthly  excur- 
sions in  this  nature  having  been  long  confined  to  the  holy 
ground  of  honest  Urhaii^s  obituary.  May  it  be  long  be- 
fore his  own  name  shall  help  to  swell  those  columns  of 
unenvied  flattery ! — ^Meantime,  O  ye  New  Benchers  of 
the  Inner  Temple,  cherish  him  kindly,  for  he  is  himself 
the  kindliest  of  human  creatures.  Should  infirmities 
overtake  him — ^he  is  yet  in  green  and  vigorous  senility — 
make  allowances  for  them,  remembering  that  "  ye  your- 
selves are  old."  So  may  the  Winged  Horse,  your  an- 
cient badge  and  cognizance,  still  flourish  I  so  may  future 
Hookers  and  Seldens  illustrate  your  church  and  cham- 
bers! so  may  the  sparrows,  in  default  of  more  melodious 
quiristers,  unpoisoned  hop  about  your  walks!  so  may 
the  fresh-colored  and  cleanly  nursery-maid,  who,  by 
leave,  airs  her  playful  charge  in  your  stately  gardens, 
drop  her  prettiest  blushing  curtsy  as  ye  pass,  reductive 
of  juvenescent  emotion !  so  may  the  younkers  of  this 
generation  eye  you,  pacing  your  stately  terrace,  with  the 
same  superstitious  veneration,  with  which  the  child  Elia 
gazed  on  the  Old  Worthies  that  solemnized  the  parade 
before  ye  I 


GRACE   BEFORE  MEAT.  I47 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 

The  custom  of  saying  grace  at  meals  had,  probably, 
its  origin  in  the  early  times  of  the  world,  and  the  hunter- 
state  of  man,  when  dinners  were  precarious  things,  and 
a  full  meal  was  something  more  than  a  common  blessing ! 
when  a  bellyful  was  a  windfall,  and  looked  like  a  spe- 
cial providence.  In  the  shouts  of  triumphant  songs  with 
which,  after  a  season  of  sharp  abstinence,  a  lucky  booty 
of  deer's  or  goat's  flesh  would  naturally  be  ushered  home, 
existed,  perhaps,  the  germ  of  the  modern  grace.  It  is 
not  otherwise  easy  to  be  understood,  why  the  blessing  of 
food — the  act  of  eating — should  have  had  a  particular 
expression  of  thanksgiving  annexed  to  it,  distinct  from 
that  implied  and  silent  gratitude  with  which  we  are  ex- 
pected to  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of  the  many  other 
various  gifts  and  good  things  of  existence. 

I  own  that  I  am  disposed  to  say  grace  upon  twenty 
other  occasions  in  the  course  of  the  day  besides  my  din- 
ner. I  want  a  form  for  setting  out  upon  a  pleasant  walk, 
for  a  moonlight  ramble,  for  a  friendly  meeting,  or  a 
solved  problem.  Why  have  we  none  for  books,  those 
spiritual  repasts — a  grace  before  Milton — a  grace  before 
Shakespeare — a  devotional  exercise  proper  to  be  said 
before  reading  the  '* Fairy  Queen?" — but  the  received 
ritual  having  prescribed  these  forms  to  the  solitary  cere- 
mony of  manducation,  I  shall  confine  my  observations  to 
the  experience  which  I  have  had  of  the  grace,  properly 
so  called  ;  commending  my  new  scheme  for  extension  to 
a  niche  in  the  grand  philosophical,  poetical,  and  per- 
chance in  part  heretical,  liturgy,  now  compiling  by  my 
friend  Homo  Humanus,  for  the  use  of  a  certain  snug  con- 


148  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

gregation  of  Utopian  Rabelaisian  Christians,  no  matter 
where  assembled. 

The  form,  then,  of  the  benediction  before  eating  has 
its  beauty  at  a  poor  man's  table,  or  at  the  simple  and  un- 
provocative  repast  of  children.  It  is  here  that  the  grace 
becomes  exceedingly  graceful.  The  indigent  man,  who 
hardly  knows  whether  he  shall  have  a  meal  the  next  day 
or  not,  sits  down  to  his  fare  with  a  present  sense  of  the 
blessing,  which  can  be  but  feebly  acted  by  the  rich,  into 
whose  mind  the  conception  of  wanting  a  dinner  could 
never,  but  by  some  extreme  theory,  have  entered.  The 
proper  end  of  food — the  animal  sustenance — is  barely 
contemplated  by  them.  The  poor  man's  bread  is  his 
daily  bread,  literally  his  bread  for  the  day.  Their  courses 
are  perennial. 

Again,  the  plainest  diet  seems  the  fittest  to  be  pre- 
ceded by  the  grace.  That  which  in  least  stimulative  to 
appetite,  leaves  the  mind  most  free  for  foreign  considera- 
tions. A  man  may  feel  thankful,  heartily  thankful,  over 
a  dish  of  plain  mutton  with  turnips,  and  have  leisure  to 
reflect  upon  the  ordinance  and  institution  of  eating; 
when  he  shall  confess  a  perturbation  of  mind,  incon- 
sistent with  the  purposes  of  the  grace,  at  the  presence  of 
venison  or  turtle.  When  I  have  sate  (a  varus  Jiospes)  at 
rich  men's  tables,  with  the  savory  soup  and  messes 
steaming  up  the  nostrils,  and  moistening  the  lips  of  the 
guests  with  desire  and  a  distracted  choice,  I  have  felt 
the  introduction  of  that  ceremony  to  be  unseasonable. 
With  the  ravenous  orgasm  upon  you,  it  seems  imper- 
tinent to  interpose  a  religious  sentiment.  It  is  a  confu- 
sion of  purpose  .to  mutter  out  praises  from  a  mouth  that 
waters.  The  heats  of  epicurism  put  out  the  gentle  flame 
of  devotion.    The  incense  which  rises  round  is  pagan, 


GRACE   BEFORE  MEAT.  149 

and  the  belly -god  intercepts  it  for  his  own.  The  very 
excess  of  the  provision  beyond  the  needs,  takes  away  all 
sense  of  proportion  between  the  end  and  means.  The 
giver  is  veiled  by  his  gifts.  You  are  startled  at  the  in- 
justice of  returning  thanks — for  what  ? — for  having  too 
much,  while  so  many  starve.  It  is  to  praise  the  gods 
amiss. 

I  have  observed  this  awkwardness  felt,  scarce  con- 
sciously, perhaps,  by  the  good  man  who  says  the  grace. 
I  have  seen  it  in  clergymen  and  others — a  sort  of  shame 
— a  sense  of  the  co-presence  of  circumstances  which  nn- 
hallow  the  blessing.  After  a  devotional  tone  put  on  for 
a  few  seconds,  how  rapidly  the  speaker  will  fall  into  his 
common  voice !  helping  himself  or  his  neighbor,  as  if  to 
get  rid  of  some  uneasy  sensation  of  hypocrisy.  Kot  that 
the  good  man  was  a  hypocrite,  or  was  not  most  consci- 
entious in  the  discharge  of  the  duty  ;  but  he  felt  in  his, 
inmost  mind  the  incompatibility  of  the  scene  and  the 
viands  before  him,  with  the  exercise  of  a  calm  and  ration- 
al gratitude. 

I  hear  somebody  exclaim — Would  you  have  Chris- 
tians sit  down  at  table,  like  hogs  to  their  troughs,  with- 
out remembering  the  Giver  ? — ^no — I  would  have  them 
sit  down  as  Christians,  remembering  the  Giver,  and  less 
like  hogs.  Or  if  their  appetites  must  run  riot,  and  they 
must  pamper  themselves  with  delicacies  for  which  East 
and  West  are  ransacked,  I  would  have  them  postpone 
their  benediction  to  a  fitter  season,  when  appetite  is  laid ; 
when  the  still,  small  voice  can  be  heard,  and  the  reason 
of  the  grace  returns — with  temperate  diet  and  restricted 
dishes.  Gluttony  and  surfeiting  are  no  proper  occasions 
for  thanksgiving.  When  Jeshurun  waxed  fat,  we  read 
that  he  kicked.    Yirgil  knew  the  harpy-nature  better, 


150  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of  Celssno  anything  but  a 
blessing.  We  may  be  gratefully  sensible  of  the  delicious- 
ness  of  some  kinds  of  food  beyond  others,  though  that  is 
a  meaner  and  inferior  gratitude :  but  the  proper  object 
of  the  grace  is  sustenance,  not  relishes ;  daily  bread,  not 
delicacies ;  the  means  of  life,  and  not  the  means  of  pam- 
pering the  carcass.  With  what  frame  or  composure,  I 
wonder,  can  a  city  chaplain  pronounce  his  benediction  at 
some  great  Hall-feast,  when  he  knows  that  his  last  con- 
cluding pious  word — and  that  in  all  probability,  the  sa- 
cred name  which  he  preaches — is  but  the  signal  for  so 
many  impatient  harpies  to  commence  their  foul  orgies, 
with  as  little  sense  of  true  thankfulness  (which  is  tem- 
perance) as  those  Virgilian  fowl !  It  is  well  if  the  good 
man  himself  does  not  feel  his  devotions  a  little  clouded, 
those  foggy,  sensuous  steams  mingling  with  and  polluting 
the  pure  altar- sacrifice. 

The  severest  satire  upon  full  tables  and  surfeits  is  the 
banquet  which  Satan,  in  the  "Paradise  Regained,"  pro- 
vides for  a  temptation  in  the  wilderness : 

"  A  table  richly  spread  in  regal  mode 
With  dishes  piled,  and  meats  of  noblest  sort 
And  savor ;  beasts  of  chase,  or  fowl  of  game, 
In  pastry  built,  or  from  the  spit,  or  boiled, 
Gris-amber-steamed ;  all  fish  from  sea  or  shore, 
Freshet  or  purling  brook,  for  which  was  drained 
Pontus,  and  Lucrine  bay,  and  Afric  coast." 

The  tempter,  I  warrant  you,  thought  these  cates 
would  go  down  without  the  recommendatory  preface  of 
a  benediction.  They  are  like  to  be  short  graces  where 
the  devil  plays  the  host. — I  am  afraid  the  poet  wants  his 
usual  decorum  in  this  place.     Was  he  thinking  of  the 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT.         151 

old  Koman  luxury,  or  of  a  gaudy  day  at  Cambridge^ 
This  was  a  temptation  fitter  for  a  Heliogabalus.  The 
whole  banquet  is  too  civic  and  culinary,  and  the  accom- 
paniments altogether  a  profanation  of  that  deep,  ab- 
stracted, holy  scene.  The  mighty  artillery  of  sauces, 
which  the  cook-fiend  conjures  up,  is  out  of  proportion 
to  the  simple  wants  and  plain  hunger  of  the  guest.  He 
that  disturbed  him  in  his  dreams,  from  his  dreams  might 
have  been  taught  better.  To  the  temperate  fantasies  of 
the  famished  Son  of  God,  what  sort  of  feasts  presented 
themselves  ? — He  dreamed,  indeed — 

"  — As  appetite  is  wont  to  dream, 
Of  meats  and  drinks,  Nature's  refreshment  sweet." 

But  what  meats? — 

**  Him  thought,  he  by  the  brook  of  Cherith  stood, 
And  saw  the  ravens  with  their  horny  beaks 
Food  to  Ehjah  bringing  even  and  morn; 
Though  ravenous,  taught  to  abstain  from  what  they  brought ; 
He  saw  the  prophet  also  how  he  fled 
Into  the  desert  and  how  there  he  slept 
Under  a  juniper ;  then  how  awaked 
He  found  his  supper  on  the  coals  prepared, 
And  by  the  angel  was  bid  rise  and  eat, 
And  ate  the  second  time  after  repose, 
The  strength  whereof  sufficed  him  forty  days ; 
Sometimes,  that  with  Elijah  he  partook, 
Or  as  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse." 

Nothing  in  Milton  is  finelier  fancied  than  these  temperate 
dreams  of  the  divine  Hungerer.  To  which  of  these  two 
visionary  banquets,  think  you,  would  the  introduction  of 
what  is  called  the  grace  have  been  the  most  fitting  and 
pertinent? 


152  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

Theoretically  I  am  no  enemy  to  graces ;  but  practi- 
cally I  own  that  (before  meat  especially)  they  seem  to 
involve  something  awkward  and  unseasonable.  Our  ap- 
petites, of  one  or  another  kind,  are  excellent  spurs  to 
our  reason,  which  might  otherwise  but  feebly  set  about 
the  great  ends  of  preserving  and  continuing  the  species. 
They  are  fit  blessings  to  be  contemplated  at  a  distance 
with  a  becoming  gratitude ;  but  the  moment  of  appetite 
(the  judicious  reader  will  apprehend  me)  is,  perhaps,  the 
least  fit  season  for  that  exercise.  The  Quakers,  who 
go  about  their  business  of  every  description  with  more 
calmness  than  we,  have  more  title  to  the  use  of  these 
benedictory  prefaces.  I  have  always  admired  their  silent 
grace,  and  the  more  because  I  have  observed  their  appli- 
cations to  the  meat  and  drink  following  to  be  less  pas- 
sionate and  sensual  than  ours.  They  are  neither  gluttons 
nor  wine-bibbers  as  a  people.  They  eat,  as  a  horse  bolts 
his  chopped  hay,  with  indifference,  calmness,  and  cleanly 
circumstances.  They  neither  grease  nor  slop  themselves. 
When  I  see  a  citizen  in  his  bib  and  tucker,  I  cannot  im- 
agine it  a  surplice. 

I  am  no  Quaker  at  my  food.  I  confess  I  am  not  in- 
different to  the  kinds  of  it.  Those  unctuous  morsels  of 
deer's  flesh  were  not  made  to  be  received  with  dispas- 
sionate services.  I  hate  a  man  who  swallows  it,  affect- 
ing not  to  know  what  he  is  eating.  I  suspect  his  taste 
in  higher  matters.  I  shrink  instinctively  from  one  who 
professes  to  like  minced  veal.  There  is  a  physiognomi- 
cal character  in  the  tastes  for  food.    C holds  that  a 

man  cannot  have  a  pure  mind  who  refuses  apple-dump- 
lings. I  am  not  certain  but  he  is  right.  With  the  decay 
of  my  first  innocence,  I  confess  a  less  and  less  relish 
daily  for  those  innocuous  cates.    The  whole  vegetable 


GRACE  BEFORE   MEAT.  153 

tribe  have  lost  their  gust  with  me.  Only  I  stick  to  as- 
paragus, which  still  seems  to  inspire  gentle  thoughts.  I 
am  impatient  and  querulous  under  culinary  disappoint- 
ments, as  to  come  home  at  the  dinner-hour,  for  instance, 
expecting  some  savory  mess,  and  to  find  one  quite  taste- 
less and  sapidless.  Butter  ill  melted — that  commonest  of 
kitchen  failures — puts  me  beside  my  tenor. — The  author 
of  the  Kambler  used  to  make  inarticulate  animal  noises 
over  a  favorite  food.  Was  this  the  music  quite  proper 
to  be  preceded  by  the  grace  ?  or  would  the  pious  man 
have  done  better  to  postpone  his  devotions  to  a  season 
when  the  blessing  might  be  contemplated  with  less  per- 
turbation ?  I  quarrel  with  no  man's  tastes,  nor  would  set 
my  thin  face  against  those  excellent  things,  in  their  way, 
jollity  and  feasting.  But  as  these  exercises,  however 
laudable,  have  little  in  them  of  grace  or  gracefulness,  a 
man  should  be  sure,  before  he  ventures  so  to  grace  them, 
that  while  he  is  pretending  his  devotions  otherwhere,  he 
is  not  secretly  kissing  his  hand  to  some  great  fish — his 
Dagon — with  a  special  consecration  of  no  ark  but  the 
fat  tureen  before  him.  Graces  are  the  sweet  preluding 
strains  to  the  banquets  of  angels  and  children ;  to  the  roots 
and  severer  repasts  of  the  Chartreuse ;  to  the  slender, 
but  not  slenderly  acknowledged,  refection  of  the  poor 
and  humble  man ;  but  at  the  heaped-up  boards  of  the 
pampered  and  the  luxurious  they  become  of  dissonant 
mood,  less  timed  and  tuned  to  the  occasion,  methinks, 
than  the  noise  of  those  better  befitting  organs  would  be 
which  children  hear  tales  of,  at  Hog's  Norton.  We  sit 
too  long  at  our  meals,  or  are  too  curious  in  the  study  of 
them,  or  too  disordered  in  our  application  to  them,  or 
engross  too  great  a  portion  of  those  good  things  (which 
should  be  common)  to  our  share,  to  be  able  with  any 


154  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

grace  to  say  grace.  To  be  thankful  for  what  we  grasp 
exceeding  our  proportion,  is  to  add  hypocrisy  to  injus- 
tice. A  lurking  sense  of  this  truth  is  what  makes  the 
performance  of  this  duty  so  cold  and  spiritless  a  service 
at  most  tables.  In  houses  where  the  grace  is  as  indis- 
pensable as  the  napkin,  who  has  not  seen  that  never-set- 
tled question  arise,  as  to  who  shall  say  it  f  while  the 
good  man  of  the  house  and  the  visitor  clergyman,  or 
some  other  guest,  belike  of  next  authority,  from  years 
of  gravity,  shall  be  bandying  about  the  office  between 
them  as  a  matter  of  compliment,  each  of  them  not  un- 
willing to  shift  the  awkward  burden  of  equivocal  duty 
from  his  own  shoulders. 

I  once  drank  tea  in  company  with  two  Methodist  di- 
vines of  different  persuasions,  whom  it  was  my  fortune 
to  introduce  to  each  other  for  the  first  time  that  evening. 
Before  the  first  cup  was  handed  round,  one  of  these  rev- 
erend gentlemen  put  it  to  the  other,  with  all  due  solem- 
nity, whether  he  chose  to  say  anything.  It  seems  it  is 
the  custom  with  some  sectaries  to  put  up  a  short  prayer 
before  this  meal  also.  His  reverend  brother  did  not  at 
first  apprehend  him,  but,  upon  an  explanation,  with  little 
less  importance  he  made  answer  that  it  was  not  a  cus- 
tom known  in  his  church :  in  which  courteous  evasion 
the  other  acquiescing  for  good  manners'  sake,  or  in  com- 
pliance with  a  weak  brother,  the  supplementary  or  tea- 
grace  was  waived  altogether.  With  what  spirit  might 
not  Lucian  have  painted  two  priests  of  his  religion  play- 
ing into  each  other's  hands  the  compliment  of  performing 
or  omitting  a  sacrifice — the  hungry  god  meantime,  doubt- 
ful of  his  incense,  with  expectant  nostrils  hovering  over 
the  two  flamens,  and  (as  between  two  stools)  going  away 
in  the  end  without  his  supper ! 


MY  FIRST   PLAY.  155 

A  short  form  upon  these  occasions  is  felt  to  want 
reverence;  a  long  one,  I  am  afraid,  cannot  escape  the 
charge  of  impertinence.  I  do  not  quite  approve  of  the 
epigrammatic  conciseness  with  which  that  equivocal  wag 
(but  my  pleasant  school-fellow)  0.  V.  L.,  when  impor- 
tuned for  a  grace,  used  to  inquire,  first  slylj  leering 
down  the  table,  "  Is  there  no  clergyman  here  ? " — signifi- 
cantly adding,  "Thank  G- — !  "  Nor  do  I  think  our  old 
form  at  school  quite  pertinent,  where  we  used  to  preface 
our  bald  bread-and-cheese  suppers  with  a  preamble,  con- 
necting with  that  humble  blessing  a  recognition  of  ben- 
efits the  most  awful  and  overwhelming  to  the  imagina- 
tion which  religion  has  to  offer.  N'on  tunc  illis  erat  locus, 
I  remember  we  were  put  to  it  to  reconcile  the  phrase 
*'  good  creatures,"  upon  which  the  blessing  rested,  with 
the  fare  set  before  us,  willfully  understanding  that  ex- 
pression in  a  low  and  animal  sense — till  some  one  recalled 
a  legend,  which  told  how,  in  the  golden  days  of  Christ's, 
the  young  Hospitallers  were  wont  to  have  smoking 
joints  of  roast-meat  upon  their  nightly  boards,  till  some 
pious  benefactor,  commiserating  the  decencies,  rather 
than  the  palates,  of  the  children,  commuted  our  flesh  for 
garments,  and  gave  us — horresco  ref evens — trousers  in- 
stead of  mutton. 


MY  FIRST  PLAY. 

At  the  north  end  of  Cross  Court  there  yet  stands  a 
portal,  of  some  architectural  pretensions,  though  reduced 
to  humble  use,  serving  at  present  for  an  entrance  to  a 
printing-office.  This  old  doorway,  if  you  are  young, 
reader,  you  may  not  know  was  the  identical  pit-entrance 


156  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

to  old  Drury — Garrick'asDrury — all  of  it  that  is  left.  I 
never  pass  it  without  shaking  some  forty  years  from  off 
my  shoulders,  recurring  to  the  evening  when  I  passed 
through  it  to  see  my  first  play.  The  afternoon  had  been 
wet,  and  the  condition  of  our  going  (the  elder  folks  and 
myself)  was,  that  the  rain  should  cease.  With  what  a 
beating  heart  did  I  watch  from  the  window  the  pud- 
dles, from  the  stillness  of  which  I  was  taught  to  prog- 
nosticate the  desired  cessation!  I  seem  to  remember 
the  last  spurt,  and  the  glee  with  which  I  ran  to  an- 
nounce it. 

We  went  with  orders,  which  my  godfather  F.  had 
sent  US.  He  kept  the  oil-shop  (now  Davies's)  at  the  cor- 
ner of  Featherstone  Buildings,  in  Holborn.  F.  was  a 
tall,  grave  person,  lofty  in  speech,  and  had  pretensions 
above  his  rank.  He  associated  in  those  days  with  John 
Palmer,  the  comedian,  whose  gait  and  bearing  he  seemed 
to  copy ;  if  John  (which  is  quite  as  likely)  did  not  rather 
borrow  somewhat  of  his  manner  from  my  godfather. 
He  was  also  known  to,  and  visited  by,  Sheridan.  It  was 
to  his  house  in  Holborn  that  young  Brinsley  brought  his 
first  wife  on  her  elopement  with  him  from  a  boarding- 
school  at  Bath — the  beautiful  Maria  Linley.  My  parents 
were  present  (over  a  quadrille  table)  when  he  arrived  in 
the  evening  with  his  harmonious  charge.  From  either 
of  these  connections,  it  may  be  inferred  that  my  god- 
father could  command  an  order  for  the  then  Drury  Lane 
Theatre  at  pleasure — and,  indeed,  a  pretty  liberal  issue 
of  those  cheap  billets,  in  Brinsley's  easy  autograph,  I 
have  heard  him  say  was  the  sole  remuneration  which  ho 
had  received  for  many  years'  nightly  illumination  of  the 
orchestra  and  various  avenues  of  that  theatre — and  he 
was  content  it  should  be  so.    The  honor  of  Sheridan's 


MY   FIRST  PLAY.  157 

familiarity — or  supposed  familiarity — was  better  to  my 
godfather  than  money. 

F.  was  the  most  gentlemanly  of  oilmen;  grandilo- 
quent, yet  courteous.  His  delivery  of  the  commonest 
matters  of  fact  was  Ciceronian.  He  had  two  Latin 
words  almost  constantly  in  his  mouth  (how  odd  sounds 
Latin  from  an  oilman's  lips !),  which  my  better  knowl- 
edge since  has  enabled  me  to  correct.  In  strict  pronun- 
ciation they  should  have  been  sounded  vice  versa — but  in 
those  young  years  they  impressed  me  with  more  awe  than 
they  would  now  do,  read  aright  from  Seneca  or  Varro 
— in  his  own  peculiar  pronunciation,  monosyllabically 
elaborated,  or  Anglicized  into  something  like  verse  verse. 
By  an  imposing  manner,  and  the  help  of  these  distorted 
syllables,  he  climbed  (but  that  was  little)  to  the  highest 
parochial  honors  which  St.  Andrew  has  to  bestow. 

He  is  dead — and  thus  much  I  thought  due  to  his 
memory,  both  for  my  first  orders  (little  wondrous  talis- 
mans!— slight  keys,  and  insignificant  to  outward  sight, 
but  opening  to  me  more  than  Arabian  paradises!)  and, 
moreover,  that  by  his  testamentary  beneficence  I  came 
into  possession  of  the  only  landed  property  which  I  could 
ever  call  my  own — situate  near  the  roadway  village  of 
pleasant  Puckeridge,  in  Hertfordshire.  When  I  jour- 
neyed down  to  take  possession,  and  planted  foot  on  my 
own  ground,  the  stately  habits  of  the  donor  descended 
upon  me,  and  I  strode  (shall  I  confess  the  vanity  ?)  with 
larger  paces  over  my  allotment  of  three-quarters  of  an 
acre,  with  its  commodious  mansion  in  the  midst,  with 
the  feeling  of  an  English  freeholder  that  all  betwixt  sky 
and  centre  was  my  own.  The  estate  has  passed  into 
more  prudent  hands,  and  nothing  but  an  agrarian  can 
restore  it. 


158  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

In  those  days  were  pit  orders.  Beshrew  the  uncom- 
fortable manager  who  abolished  them ! — with  one  of 
these  we  went.  I  remember  the  waiting  at  the  door — 
not  that  which  is  left — but  between  that  and  an  inner 
door  in  shelter — O  when  shall  I  be  such  an  expectant 
again! — with  the  cry  of  nonpareils,  an  indispensable 
playhouse  accompaniment  in  those  days.  As  near  as  I 
can  recollect,  the  fashionable  pronunciation  of  the  theat- 
rical fruiteressses  then  was,  "  Chase  some  oranges,  chase 
some  numparels,  chase  a  bill  of  the  play  " — chase  pro 
chuse.  But  when  we  got  in,  and  I  beheld  the  green 
curtain  that  veiled  a  heaven  to  my  imagination,  which 
was  soon  to  be  disclosed — the  breathless  anticipations  I 
endured!  I  had  seen  something  like  it  in  the  plate  pre- 
fixed to  Troilus  and  Oressida,  in  Kowe's  Shakespeare — ^the 
tent  scene  with  Diomede — and  a  sight  of  that  plate  can 
always  bring  back  in  a  measure  the  feeling  of  that  even- 
ing. The  boxes  at  that  time,  full  of  well-dressed  women 
of  quality,  projected  over  the  pit;  and  the  pilasters 
reaching  down  were  adorned  with  a  glistering  substance 
(I  know  not  what)  under  glass  (as  it  seemed),  resembling 
— a  homely  fancy — but  I  judged  it  to  be  sugar-candy — 
yet,  to  my  raised  imagination,  divested  of  its  homelier 
qualities,  it  appeared  a  glorified  candy !  The  orchestra 
lights  at  length  arose,  those  " fair  Auroras!  "  Once  the 
bell  sounded.  It  was  to  ring  out  yet  once  again — and, 
incapable  of  the  anticipation,  I  reposed  my  shut  eyes  in 
a  sort  of  resignation  upon  the  maternal  lap.  It  rang  the 
second  time.  The  curtain  drew  up.  I  was  not  past  six 
years  old,  and  the  play  was  Artaxerxes ! 

I  had  dabbled  a  little  in  the  Universal  History — the 
ancient  part  of  it — and  here  was  the  court  of  Persia.  It 
was  being  admitted  to  a  sight  of  the  past.    I  took  no 


MY  FIRST  PLAY.  159 

proper  interest  in  the  action  going  on,  for  I  understood 
not  its  import — but  1  heard  the  word  Darius,  and  I  was 
in  the  midst  of  Daniel.  All  feeling  was  absorbed  in 
vision.  Gorgeous  vests,  gardens,  palaces,  princesses, 
passed  before  me.  I  knew  not  players.  I  was  in  Per- 
sepolis  for  the  time,  and  the  burning  idol  of  their  devo- 
tion almost  converted  me  into  a  worshiper.  I  was  awe- 
struck, and  believed  those  significations  to  be  something 
more  than  elemental  fires.  It  was  all  enchantment  and 
a  dream.  No  such  pleasure  has  since  visited  me  but  in 
dreams — Harlequin^s  invasion  followed;  where,  I  re- 
member, the  transformation  of  the  magistrates  into  rev- 
erend beldams  seemed  to  me  a  piece  of  grave  historic 
justice,  and  the  tailor  carrying  his  own  head  to  be  as 
sober  a  verity  as  the  legend  of  St.  Denys. 

The  next  play  to  which  I  was  taken  was  the  Lady  of 
the  Manor,  of  which,  with  the  exception  of  some  scenery, 
very  faint  traces  are  left  in  my  memory.  It  was  followed 
by  a  pantomime,  called  Lun's  Ghost — a  satiric  touch,  I 
apprehend,  upon  Kich,  not  long  since  dead — but  to  my 
apprehension  (too  sincere  for  satire),  Lun  was  as  remote 
a  piece  of  antiquity  as  Lud — the  father  of  a  line  of  Har- 
lequins— transmitting  his  dagger  of  lath  (the  wooden 
sceptre)  through  countless  ages.  I  saw  the  primeval 
Motley  come  from  his  silent  tomb  in  a  ghastly  vest  of 
white  patchwork,  like  the  apparition  of  a  dead  rainbow. 
So  Harlequins  (thought  I)  look  when  they  are  dead. 

My  third  play  followed  in  quick  succession.  It  was 
the  Way  of  the  World.  I  think  I  must  have  sat  at  it  as 
grave  as  a  judge ;  for,  I  remember,  the  hysteric  affec- 
tations of  good  Lady  Wishfort  affected  me  like  some 
solemn  tragic  passion.  Robinson  Crusoe  followed;  in 
which  Crusoe,   man  Friday,  and  the  parrot,  were  as 


160  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

good  and  authentic  as  in  the  story.  The  clownery  and 
pantaloonery  of  these  pantomimes  have  clean  passed  out 
of  my  head.  I  believe  I  no  more  laughed  at  them,  than 
at  the  same  age  I  should  have  been  disposed  to  laugh  at 
the  grotesque  Gothic  heads  (seeming  to  me  then  replete 
with  devout  meaning)  that  gape,  and  grin,  in  stone 
around  the  inside  of  the  old  Round  Church  (my  church) 
of  the  Templars. 

I  saw  these  plays  in  the  season  1781-'82,  when  I  was 
from  six  to  seven  years  old.  After  the  intervention  of 
six  or  seven  other  years  (for  at  school  all  play-going  was 
inhibited)  I  again  entered  the  doors  of  a  theatre.  That 
old  Artaxerxes  evening  had  never  done  ringing  in  my 
fancy.  I  expected  the  same  feelings  to  come  again  with 
the  same  occasion.  But  we  differ  from  ourselves  less  at 
sixty  and  sixteen,  than  the  latter  does  from  six.  In  that 
interval  what  had  I  not  lost  I  At  the  first  period  I  knew 
nothing,  understood  nothing,  discriminated  nothing.  I 
felt  all,  loved  all,  wondered  all — 

"  Was  nourished,  I  could  not  tell  how — " 

I  had  left  the  temple  a  devotee,  and  was  returned  a  ra- 
tionalist. The  same  things  were  there  materially;  but 
the  emblem,  the  reference,  was  gone !  The  green  cur- 
tain was  no  longer  a  veil,  drawn  between  two  worlds, 
the  unfolding  of  which  was  to  bring  back  past  ages  to 
present  a  "  royal  ghost"— but  a  certain  quantity  of  green 
baize,  which  was  to  separate  the  audience  for  a  given 
time  from  certain  of  their  fellow-men  who  were  to  come 
forward  and  pretend  those  parts.  The  lights — the  or- 
chestra-lights— came  up  a  clumsy  machinery.  The  first 
ring,  and  the  second  ring,  was  now  but  a  trick  of  the 
prompter's  bell — which  had  been,  like  the  note  of  the 


DREAM-CHILDREN:    A  REVERIE.  IGl 

cuckoo,  a  phantom  of  a  voice,  no  hand  seen  or  guessed 
at  which  ministered  to  its  warning.  The  actors  were 
men  and  women  painted.  I  thought  the  fault  was  in 
them ;  but  it  was  in  myself,  and  the  alteration  which 
those  many  centuries— of  six  short  twelvemonths — had 
wrought  in  me.  Perhaps  it  was  fortunate  for  me  that 
the  play  of  the  evening  was  but  an  indifferent  comedy, 
as  it  gave  me  time  to  crop  some  unreasonable  expecta- 
tions, which  might  have  interfered  with  the  genuine 
emotions  with  which  I  was  soon  after  enabled  to  enter 
upon  the  first  appearance  to  me  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in  Isa- 
bella. Comparison  and  retrospection  soon  yielded  to 
the  present  attraction  of  the  scene ;  and  the  theatre  be- 
came to  me,  upon  a  new  stock,  the  most  delightful  of 
recreations. 


DKEAM-OHILDREIsr:   A  REVERIE. 

Children  love  to  listen  to  stories  about  their  elders, 
when  they  were  children ;  to  stretch  their  imagination 
to  the  conception  of  a  traditionary  great-uncle  or  gran- 
dame,  whom  they  never  saw.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that 
my  little  ones  crept  about  me  the  other  evening  to  hear 
about  their  great-grandmother  Field,  who  lived  in  a  great 
house  in  Norfolk  (a  hundred  times  bigger  than  that  in 
which  they  and  papa  lived)  which  had  been  the  scene — 
so  at  least  it  was  generally  believed  in  that  part  of  the 
country — of  the  tragic  incidents  which  they  had  lately 
become  familiar  with  from  the  ballad  of  the  Children  in 
the  Wood.  Certain  it  is  that  the  whole  story  of  the  chil- 
dren and  their  cruel  uncle  was  to  be  seen  fairly  carved 
out  in  wood  upon  the  chimney-piece  of  the  great  hall, 

11 


162  THE   ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

the  whole  story  down  to  the  Robin  Redbreasts!  till  a 
foolish  rich  person  pulled  it  down  to  set  up  a  marble  one 
of  modern  invention  in  its  stead,  with  no  story  upon  it. 
Here  Alice  put  out  one  of  her  dear  mother's  looks,  too  ten- 
der to  be  called  upbraiding.  Then  I  went  on  to  say,  how 
religious  and  how  good  their  great-grandmother  Field 
was,  how  beloved  and  respected  by  everybody,  though 
she  was  not  indeed  the  mistress  of  this  great  house,  but 
had  only  the  charge  of  it  (and  yet  in  some  respects  she 
might  be  said  to  be  the  mistress  of  it  too)  committed  to 
her  by  the  owner,  who  preferred  living  in  a  newer  and 
more  fashionable  mansion  which  he  had  purchased  some- 
where in  the  adjoining  county ;  but  still  she  lived  in  it 
in  a  manner  as  if  it  had  been  her  own,  and  kept  up  the 
dignity  of  the  great  house  in  a  sort  while  she  lived, 
which  afterward  came  to  decay,  and  was  nearly  pulled 
down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments  stripped  and  carried 
away  to  the  owner's  other  house,  where  they  were  set 
up,  and  looked  as  awkward  as  if  some  one  were  to  carry 
away  the  old  tombs  they  had  seen  lately  at  the  Abbey, 
and  stick  them  up  in  Lady  O.'s  tawdry  gilt  drawing- 
room.  Here  John  smiled,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  That 
would  be  foolish  indeed."  And  then  I  told  how,  when  she 
came  to  die,  her  funeral  was  attended  by  a  concourse  of 
all  the  poor,  and  some  of  the  gentry  too,  of  the  neighbor- 
hood for  many  miles  round,  to  show  their  respect  for  her 
memory,  because  she  had  been  such  a  good  and  religious 
woman,  so  good,  iudeed,  that  she  knew  all  the  Psaltery 
by  heart,  ay,  and  a  great  part  of  the  Testament  besides. 
Here  little  Alice  spread  her  hands.  Then  I  told  what  a 
tall,  upright,  graceful  person  their  great  grandmother 
Field  once  was ;  and  how  in  her  youth  she  was  esteemed 
the  best  dancer — here  Alice's  little  right  foot  played  an 


DREAM-CHILDREN:    A  REVERIE.  163 

involuntary  movement,  till,  upon  my  looking  grave,  it 
desisted — the  best  dancer,  I  was  saying,  in  the  county, 
till  a  cruel  disease,  called  a  cancer,  came,  and  bowed  her 
down  with  pain ;  but  it  could  never  bend  her  good  spir- 
its, or  make  them  stoop,  but  they  were  still  upright,  be- 
cause she  was  so  good  and  religious.  Then  I  told  how 
she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  in  a  lone  chamber  of  the 
great  lone  house,  and  how  she  believed  that  an  apparition 
of  two  infants  was  to  be  seen  at  midnight  gliding  up  and 
down  the  great  staircase  near  where  she  slept,  but  she 
said  "  Those  innocents  would  do  her  no  harm ;  "  and  how 
frightened  I  used  to  be,  though  in  those  days  I  had  my 
maid  to  sleep  with  me,  because  I  was  never  half  so  good 
or  religious  as  she — and  yet  I  never  saw  the  infants. 
Here  John  expanded  all  his  eyebrows  and  tried  to  look 
courageous.  Then  I  told  how  good  she  was  to  all  her 
grandchildren,  having  us  to  the  great  house  in  the  holi- 
days, where  I  in  particular  used  to  spend  many  hours 
by  myself,  in  gazing  upon  the  old  busts  of  the  twelve 
Caesars,  that  had  been  the  Emperors  of  Rome,  till  the 
old  marble  heads  would  seem  to  live  again,  or  I  to  be 
turned  into  marble  with  them ;  how  I  never  could  be 
tired  with  roaming  about  that  huge  mansion,  with  its 
vast  empty  rooms,  with  their  worn-out  hangings,  flutter- 
ing tapestry,  and  carved  oaken  panels,  with  the  gilding 
almost  rubbed  out — sometimes  in  the  spacious  old-fash- 
ioned gardens,  which  I  had  almost  to  myself,  unless  when 
now  and  then  a  solitary  gardening-man  would  cross  me 
— and  how  the  nectarines  and  peaches  hung  upon  the 
walls,  without  my  ever  offering  to  pluck  them,  because 
they  were  forbidden  fruit,  unless  now  and  then — and 
because  I  had  more  pleasure  in  strolling  about  .among 
the  old,  melancholy-looking  yew-trees,  or  the  firs,  and 


164  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

picking  up  the  red  berries,  and  the  fir-apples,  which 
were  good  for  nothing  but  to  look  at — or  in  lying  about 
upon  the  fresh  grass  with  all  the  fine  garden  smells  around 
me — or  basking  in  the  orangery,  till  I  could  almost  fancy 
myself  ripening,  too,  along  with  the  oranges  and  the 
limes  in  that  grateful  warmth — or  in  watching  the  d^ce 
that  darted  to  and  fro  in  the  fish-pond,  at  the  bottom  of 
the  garden,  with  here  and  there  a  great  sulky  pike  hang- 
ing midway  down  the  water  in  silent  state,  as  if  it 
mocked  at  their  impertinent  friskings  —  I  had  more 
pleasure  in  these  busy-idle  diversions  than  in  all  the 
sweet  flavors  of  peaches,  nectarines,  oranges,  and  such- 
like common  baits  of  children.  Here  John  slyly  depos- 
ited back  upon  the  plate  a  bunch  of  grapes,  which,  not 
unobserved  by  Alice,  he  had  meditated  dividing  with 
her,  and  both  seemed  willing  to  relinquish  them  for  the 
present  as  irrelevant.  Then,  in  somewhat  a  more  height- 
ened tone,  I  told  how,  though  their  great-grandmother 
Field  loved  all  her  grandchildren,  yet  in  an  especial 
manner  she  might  be  said  to  love  their  Uncle  John 

L ,  because  he  was  so  handsome  and  spirited  a  youth, 

and  a  king  to  the  rest  of  us ;  and,  instead  of  moping 
about  in  solitary  corners,  like  some  of  us,  he  would 
mount  the  most  mettlesome  horse  he  could  get,  when 
but  an  imp  no  bigger  than  themselves,  and  make  it  carry 
him  half  over  the  county  in  a  morning,  and  join  the 
hunters  when  there  were  any  out — and  yet  he  loved  the 
old  great  house  and  gardens  too,  but  had  too  much  spirit 
to  be  always  pent  up  within  their  boundaries — and  how 
their  uncle  grew  up  to  man's  estate  as  brave  as  he  was 
handsome,  to  the  admiration  of  everybody,  but  of  their 
great-grandmother  Field  most  especially;  and  how  he 
used  to  carry  me  upon  his  back  when  I  was  a  lame-foot- 


DREAM-CHILDREN:    A  REVERIE.  165 

ed  boy — ^for  he  was  a  good  bit  older  than  me — many  a 
mile  when  I  could  not  walk  for  pain — and  how  in  after- 
life he  became  lame-footed  too,  and  I  did  not  always  (I 
fear)  make  allowances  enough  for  him  when  he  was  im- 
patient, and  in  pain,  nor  remember  sufficiently  how  con- 
siderate he  had  been  to  me  when  I  was  lame-footed ; 
and  how,  when  he  died,  though  he  had  not  been  dead 
an  hour,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  died  a  great  while  ago, 
such  a  distance  there  is  betwixt  life  and  death :  and 
how  I  bore  his  death  as  I  thought  pretty  well  at  first, 
but  afterward  it  haunted  and  haunted  me ;  and  though 
I  did  not  cry  or  take  it  to  heart  as  some  do,  and  *as  I 
think  he  would  have  done  if  I  had  died,  yet  I  missed 
him  all  day  long,  and  knew  not  till  then  how  much  I  had 
loved  him.  I  missed  his  kindness,  and  I  missed  his  cross- 
ness, and  wished  him  to  be  alive  again,  to  be  quarreling 
with  him  (for  we  quarreled  sometimes),  rather  than  not 
have  him  again,  and  was  as  uneasy  without  him,  as  he 
their  poor  uncle  must  have  been  when  the  doctor  took  off 
his  limb. — Here  the  children  fell  a-crying,  and  asked  if 
their  little  mourning  which  they  had  on  was  not  for  Uncle 
John,  and  they  looked  up  and  prayed  me  not  to  go  on 
about  their  uncle,  but  to  tell  them  some  stories  about 
their  pretty  dead  mother.  Then  I  told  how  for  seven 
long  years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair,  yet 
persisting  ever,  I  courted  the  fair  Alice  W — n ;  and,  as 
much  as  children  could  understand,  I  explained  to  them 
what  coyness,  and  difficulty,  and  denial,  meant  in  maid- 
ens—when suddenly  turning  to  Alice,  the  soul  of  the 
first  Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a  reality  of 
re-presentment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which  of  them 
stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright  hair  was; 
and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the  children  gradually 


166  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

grew  fainter  to  in}'  view,  receding,  and  still  receding,  till 
nothing  at  last  but  too  mournful  features  were  seen  in 
the  uttermost  distance,  which,  without  speech,  strangely 
impressed  upon  me  the  effects  of  speech :  "  We  are  not 
of  Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor  are  we  children  at  all.  The 
children  of  Alice  call  Bartrum  father.  We  are  nothing; 
less  than  nothing,  and  dreams.  We  are  only  what  might 
have  been,  and  must  wait  upon  the  tedious  shores  of 
Lethe  millions  of  ages  before  we  have  existence,  and  a 
name  " — and  immediately  awaking,  I  found  myself  qui- 
etly seated  in  my  bachelor  arm-chair,  where  I  had  fallen 
asleep,  with  the  faithful  Bridget  unchanged  by  my  side — 
but  John  L.  (or  James  Elia)  was  gone  forever. 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS. 

IN   A   LETTER   TO   B.    F.,    ESQ.,    AT   SYDNEY,    NEW 
SOUTH   WALES. 

My  DEAR  F. :  When  I  think  how  welcome  the  sight 
of  a  letter  from  the  world  where  you  were  born  must  be 
to  you  in  that  strange  one  to  which  you  have  been  trans- 
planted, I  feel  some  compunctious  visitings  at  my  long 
silence.  But,  indeed,  it  is  no  easy  effort  to  set  about  a 
correspondence  at  our  distance.  The  weary  world  of 
waters  between  us  oppresses  the  imagination.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  how  a  scrawl  of  mine  should  ever  stretch 
across  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  presumption  to  expect  that 
one's  thoughts  should  live  so  far.  It  is  like  writing  for 
posterity ;  and  reminds  me  of  one  of  Mrs.  Rowe's  super- 
scriptions, "  Alcander  to  Strephon  in  the  shades."   Cow- 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS.  167 

ley's  Post- Angel  is  no  more  than  would  be  expedient  in 
such  an  intercourse.  One  drops  a  packet  at  Lombard 
Street,  and  in  twenty-four  hours  a  friend  in  Cumberland 
{i:ets  it  as  fresh  as  if  it  came  in  ice.  It  is  only  like  whis- 
pering through  a  long  trumpet.  But  suppose  a  tube  let 
down  from  the  moon,  with  yourself  at  one  end,  and  the 
man  at  the  other ;  it  would  be  some  balk  to  the  spirit 
of  conversation,  if  you  knew  that  the  dialogue  exchanged 
with  that  interesting  theosophist  would  take  two  or  three 
revolutions  of  a  higher  luminary  in  its  passage.  Yet, 
for  aught  I  know,  you  may  be  some  parasangs  nigher 
that  primitive  idea — Plato's  man— than  we  in  England 
here  have  the  honor  to  reckon  ourselves. 

Epistolary  matter  usually  compriseth  three  topics: 
news,  sentiment,  and  puns.  In  the  latter,  I  include  all 
non-serious  subjects ;  or  subjects  serious  in  themselves, 
but,  treated  after  my  fashion,  non-seriously.  And  first, 
for  news.  In  them  the  most  desirable  circumstance,  I 
suppose,  is  that  they  shall  be  true.  But  what  security 
can  I  have  that  what  I  now  send  you  for  truth  shall  not, 
before  you  get  it,  unaccountably  turn  into  a  lie  ?  For 
instance,  our  mutual  friend  P.  is  at  this  present  writing — 
my^  I^oio — in  good  health,  and  enjoys  a  fair  share  of 
worldly  reputation.  You  are  glad  to  hear  it.  This  is 
natural  and  friendly.  But  at  this  present  reading — your 
Now — he  may  possibly  be  in  the  Bench,  or  going  to  be 
hanged,  which  in  reason  ought  to  abate  something  of 
your  transport  (i.  e.,  at  hearing  he  was  well,  etc.),  or  at 
least  considerably  to  modify  it.  I  am  going  to  the  play 
this  evening  to  have  a  laugh  with  Munden.    You  have 

no  theatre,  I  think  you  told  me,  in  your  land  of  d d 

realities.  You  naturally  lick  your  lips,  and  envy  me  my 
felicity.    Think  but  a  moment,  and  you  will  correct  the 


168  THE   ESSAYS  OF   ELIA. 

hateful  emotion.  Why  is  it  Sunday  morning  with  you, 
and  1823  ?  This  confusion  of  tenses,  this  grand  sole- 
cism of  two  presents,  is  in  a  degree  common  to  all  post- 
age. But  if  I  sent  you  word  to  Bath  or  Devizes,  that  I 
was  expecting  the  aforesaid  treat  this  evening,  though  at 
the  moment  you  received  the  intelligence,  my  full  feast 
of  fun  would  he  over,  yet  there  would  he  for  a  day  or 
two  after,  as  you  would  well  knojy,  a  smack,  a  relish 
left  upon  my  mental  palate,  which  would  give  rational 
encouragement  for  you  to  foster  a  portion  at  least  of  the 
disagreeable  passion  which  it  was  in  part  my  intention 
to  produce.  But,  ten  months  hence,  your  envy  or  your 
sympathy  would  be  as  useless  as  a  passion  spent  upon 
the  dead.  Not  only  does  truth,  in  these  long  intervals, 
un- essence  herself,  but  (what  is  harder)  one  cannot  vent- 
ure a  crude  fiction,  for  the  fear  that  it  may  ripen  into  a 
truth  upon  the  voyage.  What  a  wild,  improbable  banter 
I  put  upon  you  some  three  years  since — of  Will  Weath- 
erall  having  married  a  servant-maid !  I  remember  grave- 
ly consulting  you  how  we  were  to  receive  her — for  Will's 
wife  was  in  no  case  to  be  rejected ;  and  your  no  less  se- 
rious replication  in  the  matter ;  how  tenderly  you  ad- 
vised an  abstemious  introduction  of  literary  topics  before 
the  lady,  with  a  caution  not  to  be  too  forward  in  bring- 
ing on  the  carpet  matters  more  within  the  sphere  of  her 
intelligence ;  your  deliberate  judgment,  or  rather  wise 
suspension  of  sentence,  how  far  jacks,  and  spits,  and 
mops,  could  with  propriety  be  introduced  as  subjects ; 
whether  the  conscious  avoiding  of  all  such  matters  in 
discourse  would  not  have  a  worse  look  than  the  taking 
of  them  casually  in  our  way ;  in  what  manner  we  should 
carry  ourselves  to  ojir  maid  Becky,  Mrs.  William  Weath- 
erall  being  by ;  whether  we  should  show  more  delicacy, 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS.  169 

and  a  truer  sense  of  respect  for  Will's  wife,  by  treating 
Becky  with  our  customary  chiding  before  her,  or  by  an 
unusual  deferential  civility  paid  to  Becky  as  to  a  person 
of  great  worth,  but  thrown  by  the  caprice  of  fate  into  a 
humble  station.  There  were  difficulties,  I  remember,  on 
both  sides,  which  you  did  me  the  favor  to  state  with  the 
precision  of  a  lawyer,  united  to  the  tenderness  of  a  friend. 
1  laughed  in  my  sleeve  at  your  solemn  pleadings,  when 
lo !  while  I  was  valuing  myself  upon  this  flam  put  upon  you 
in  New  South  Wales,  the  devil  in  England,  jealous  pos- 
sibly of  any  lie-children  not  his  own  or  working  after 
my  copy,  has  actually  instigated  our  friend  (not  three 
days  since)  to  the  commission  of  a  matrimony,  which 
I  had  only  conjured  up  for  your  diversion.  William 
Weatherall  has  married  Mrs.  Ootterel's  maid.  But  to 
take  it  in  its  truest  sense,  you  will  see,  my  dear  F.,  that 
news  from  me  must  become  history  to  you ;  which  I 
neither  profess  to  write,  nor  indeed  care  much  for  read- 
ing. No  person^  under  a  diviner,  can  with  any  prospect 
of  veracity  conduct  a  correspondence  at  such  an  arm's 
length.  Two  prophets,  indeed,  might  thus  interchange 
intelligence  with  effect ;  the  epoch  of  the  writer  (Ha- 
bakkuk)  falling  in  with  the  true  present  time  of  the  re- 
ceiver (Daniel) ;  but,  then,  we  are  no  prophets. 

Then  as  to  sentiment.  It  fares  little  better  with  that. 
This  kind  of  dish,  above  all,  requires  to  be  served  up 
hot ;  or  sent  off  in  water-plates,  that  your  friend  may 
have  it  almost  as  warm  as  yourself.  If  it  have  time  to 
cool,  it  is  the  most  tasteless  of  all  cold  meats.  I  have 
often  smiled  at  a  conceit  of  the  late  Lord  0.  It  seems 
that,  traveling  somewhere  about  Geneva,  he  came  to 
some  pretty  green  spot,  or  nook  where  a  willow,  or 
something  hung  so  fantastically  and  invitingly  over  a 


170  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

stream — was  it  ? — or  a  rock  ? — no  matter — but  the  still- 
ness and  the  repose,  after  a  weary  journey,  'tis  likely,  in 
a  languid  moment  of  his  Lordship's  hot  restless  life,  so 
took  his  fancy  that  he  could  imagine  no  place  so  proper, 
in  the  event  of  his  death,  to  lay  his  bones  in.  This  was 
all  very  natural  and  excusable  as  a  sentiment,  and  shows 
his  character  in  a  very  pleasing  light.  But  when  from 
a  passing  sentiment  it  came  to  be  an  act ;  and  when,  by 
a  positive  testamentary  disposal,  his  remains  were  actu- 
ally carried  all  that  way  from  England  ;  who  was  there, 
some  desperate  sentimentalists  excepted,  that  did  not 
ask  the  question.  Why  could  not  his  Lordship  have  found 
a  spot  as  solitary,  a  nook  as  romantic,  a  tree  as  green 
and  pendent,  with  a  stream  as  emblematic  to  his  pur- 
pose, in  Surrey,  in  Dorset,  or  in  Devon  ?  Conceive  the 
sentiment  boarded  up,  freighted,  entered  at  the  Custom- 
House  (startling  the  tide-waiters  with  the  novelty), 
hoisted  into  a  ship.  Conceive  it  pawed  about  and  han- 
dled between  the  rude  jests  of  tarpaulin  ruflBans — a 
thing  of  its  delicate  texture — the  salt  bilge  wetting  it  till 
it  became  as  vapid  as  a  damaged  lustring.  Suppose  it  in 
material  danger  (mariners  have  some  superstition  about 
sentiments)  of  being  tossed  over  in  a  fresh  gale  to  some 
propitiatory  shark  (spirit  of  Saint  Gothard,  save  us  from 
a  quietus  so  foreign  to  the  deviser's  purpose !) ;  but  it  has 
happily  evaded  a  fishy  consummation.  Trace  it  then  to 
its  lucky  landing — at  Lyons  shall  we  say  ? — I  have  not 
the  map  before  me — jostled  upon  four  men's  shoulders — 
baiting  at  this  town — stopping  to  refresh  at  t'other  vil- 
lage— waiting  a  passport  here,  a  license  there ;  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  magistracy  in  this  district,  the  concurrence 
of  the  ecclesiastics  in  that  canton ;  till  at  length  it  ar- 
rives at  its  destination,  tired  out  and  jaded,  from  a  brisk 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS.  171 

sentiment,  into  a  feature  of  silly  pride,  or  tawdry  sense- 
less affectation.  How  few  sentiments,  my  dear  F.,  I  am 
afraid  we  can  set  down,  in  the  sailor's  phrase,  as  quite 
sea-worthy ! 

Lastly,  as  to  the  agreeable  levities,  which,  though 
contemptible  in  bulk,  are  the  twinkling  corpuscula  which 
should  irradiate  a  right  friendly  epistle — your  puns  and 
small  jests  are,  I  apprehend,  extremely  circumscribed  in 
their  sphere  of  action.  They  are  so  far  from  a  capacity 
of  being  packed  up  and  sent  beyond  sea,  they  will 
scarce  endure  to  be  transported  by  hand  from  this  room 
to  the  next.  Their  vigor  is  as  the  instant  of  their  birth. 
Their  nutriment  for  their  brief  existence  is  the  intel- 
lectual atmosphere  of  the  by-standers:  or  this  last  is  the 
fine  slime  of  Nilus — the  melior  lutus — whose  maternal 
recipiency  is  as  necessary  as  the  sol  pater  to  their  equiv- 
ocal generation.  A  pun  hath  a  hearty  kind  of  present 
ear-kissing  smack  with  it :  you  can  no  more  transmit  it 
in  its  pristine  flavor,  than  you  can  send  a  kiss. — Have 
you  not  tried  in  some  instances  to  palm  off  a  yesterday's 
pun  upon  a  gentleman,  and  has  it  answered  ?  ]!»rot  but  it 
was  new  to  his  hearing,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  come  new 
from  you.  It  did  not  hitch  in.  It  was  like  picking  up 
at  a  village  ale-house  a  two-days'-old  newspaper.  You 
have  not  seen  it  before,  but  you  resent  the  stale  thing  as 
an  affront.  This  sort  of  merchandise  above  all  requires 
a  quick  return.  A  pun,  and  its  recognitory  laugh,  must 
be  co-instantaneous.  The  one  is  the  brisk  lightning,  the 
other  the  fierce  thunder.  A  moment's  interval,  and  the 
link  is  snapped.  A  pun  is  reflected  from  a  friend's  face  as 
from  a  mirror.  Who  would  consult  his  sweet  visnomy, 
if  the  polished  surface  were  two  or  three  minutes  (not 
to  speak  of  twelve  months,  my  dear  F.)  in  giving  back 
its  copy  ? 


172  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

I  cannot  image  to  myself  whereabout  you  are. 
When  I  try  to  fix  it,  Peter  Wilkins's  island  comes  across 
me.  Sometimes  you  seem  to  be  in  the  Hades  of  Thieves. 
I  see  Diogenes  prying  among  you  with  his  perpetual 
fruitless  lantern.  What  must  you  be  willing  by  this  time 
to  give  for  the  sight  of  an  honest  man  I  You  must  al- 
most have  forgotten  how  we  look.  And  tell  me,  what 
your  Sydneyites  do?  are  they  th**v*ng  all  day  long? 
Merciful  heaven !  what  property  can  stand  against  such 
a  depredation!  The  kangaroos — your  Aborigines — do 
they  keep  their  primitive  simplicity  un-Europe-tainted, 
with  those  little  short  fore-puds,  looking  like  a  lesson 
framed  by  Nature  to  the  pick-pocket !  Marry,  for  div- 
ing into  fobs  they  are  rather  lamely  provided,  a  priori  ; 
but  if  the  hue-and-cry  were  once  up,  they  would  show  as 
fair  a  pair  of  hind-shifters  as  the  expertest  loco-motor  in 
the  colony. — We  hear  the  most  improbable  tales  at  this 
distance.  Pray  is  it  true  that  the  young  Spartans  among 
you  are  born  with  six  fingers,  which  spoils  their  scan- 
ning ? — It  must  look  very  odd ;  but  use  reconciles.  For 
their  scansion,  it  is  less  to  be  regretted,  for  if  they  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  be  poets,  it  is  odds  but  they  turn 
out,  the  greater  part  of  them,  vile  plagiarists. — Is  there 
much  difference  to  see,  too,  between  the  son  of  a  th**f, 
and  the  grandson  ?  or  where  does  the  taint  stop  ?  Do 
you  bleach  in  three  or  in  four  generations  ? — I  have  many 
questions  to  put,  but  ten  Delphic  voyages  can  be  made  in 
a  shorter  time  than  it  will  take  to  satisfy  my  scruples. — 
Do  you  grow  your  own  hemp  ? — What  is  your  staple  trade, 
— exclusive  of  the  national  profession,  I  mean  ?  Your 
locksmiths,  I  take  it,  are  some  of  your  great  capitalists. 

I  am  insensibly  chatting  to  you  as  familiarly  as  when 
we  used  to  exchange  good-morrows  out  of  our  old  con- 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.       173 

tiguous  windows,  in  pump-famed  Hare  Court  in  the  Tem- 
ple. Why  did  jou  ever  leave  that  quiet  corner  ? — Why 
did  I  ? — with  its  complement  of  four  poor  elms,  from 
whose  smoke-dyed  barks,  the  theme  of  jesting  ruralists, 
I  picked  my  first  lady-birds !  My  heart  is  as  dry  as  that 
spring  sometimes  proves  in  a  thirsty  August,  when  I  re- 
vert to  the  space  that  is  between  us ;  a  length  of  passage 
enough  to  render  obsolete  the  phrases  of  our  English 
letters  before  they  can  reach  you.  But  while  I  talk,  I 
think  you  hear  me — thoughts  dallying  with  vain  sur- 
mise— 

"  Aye  me !  while  thee  the  seas  and  sounding  shores 
Hold  far  away." 

Come  back,  before  I  am  grown  into  a  very  old  man,  so 
as  you  shall  hardly  know  me.  Come,  before  Bridget  walks 
on  crutches.  Girls  whom  you  left  children  have  become 
sage  matrons  while  you  are  tarrying  there.  The  bloom- 
ing Miss  W — r  (you  remember  Sally  W — r)  called  upon 
us  yesterday,  an  aged  crone.  Folks,  whom  you  knew, 
die  off  every  year.  Formerly,  I  thought  that  death  was 
wearing  out — I  stood  ramparted  about  with  so  many 
healthy  friends.  The  departure  of  J.  W.,  two  springs 
back,  corrected  my  delusion.  Since  then  the  old  divorcer 
has  been  busy.  If  you  do  not  make  haste  to  return, 
there  will  be  Uttle  left  to  greet  you,  of  me,  or  mine. 


THE  PRAISE   OF   CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 

I  LIKE  to  meet  a  sweep — understand  me — not  a 
grown  sweeper — old  chimney-sweepers  are  by  no  means 
attractive — but  one  of  those  tender  novices,  blooming 


174  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

through  their  first  nigritude,  the  maternal  washings  not 
quite  effaced  from  the  cheek — such  as  come  forth  with 
the  dawn,  or  somewhat  earlier,  with  their  little  profes- 
sional notes  sounding  like  the  peep  peep  of  a  young  spar- 
row; or  liker  to  the  matin  lark  should  I  pronounce 
them,  in  their  aerial  ascents  not  seldom  anticipating  the 
sunrise? 

I  have  a  kindly  yearning  toward  these  dim  specks — 
poor  hlots — innocent  blacknesses — 

I  reverence  these  young  Africans  of  our  own  growth 
— these  almost  clergy  imps,  who  sport  their  cloth  with- 
out assumption ;  and  from  their  little  pulpits  (the  tops  of 
chimneys),  in  the  nipping  air  of  a  December  morning-, 
preach  a  lesson  of  patience  to  mankind. 

When  a  child,  what  a  mysterious  pleasure  it  was  to 
witness  their  operation  I  to  see  a  chit  no  bigger  than 
one's  self,  enter,  one  knew  not  by  what  process,  into 
what  seemed  the  fauces  Averni — to  pursue  him  in  ima- 
gination, as  he  went  sounding  on  through  so  many  dark, 
stifliug  caverns,  horrid  shades! — to  shudder  with  the 
idea  that  "now,  surely,  he  must  be  lost  forever!" — to 
revive  at  hearing  his  feeble  shout  of  discovered  daylight 
— and  then  (O  fullness  of  delight !)  running  out-of-doors, 
to  come  just  in  time  to  see  the  sable  phenomenon  emerge 
in  safety,  the  brandished  weapon  of  his  art  victorious 
like  some  flag  waved  over  a  conquered  citadel !  I  seem 
to  remember  having  been  told  that  a  bad  sweep  was 
once  left  in  a  stack  with  his  brush,  to  indicate  which 
way  the  wind  blew.  It  was  an  awful  spectacle  certainly ; 
not  much  unlike  the  old  stage  direction  in  '*  Macbeth," 
where  the  *'  Apparition  of  a  child  crowned,  with  a  tree 
in  his  hand,  rises." 

Reader,  if  thou  meetest  one  of  tli^ce  small  gentry  in 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.      175 

thy  early  rambles,  it  is  good  to  give  Mm  a  penny.  It  is 
better  to  give  him  twopence.  If  it  be  starving  weather, 
and  to  the  proper  troubles  of  his  hard  occupation,  a  pair 
of  kibed  heels  (no  unusual  accompaniment)  be  super- 
added, the  demand  on  thy  humanity  will  surely  rise  to  a 
tester. 

There  is  a  composition,  the  groundwork  of  which  I 
have  understood  to  be  the  sweet  wood  'yclept  sassafras. 
This  wood  boiled  down  to  a  kind  of  tea,  and  tempered 
with  an  infusion  of  milk  and  sugar,  hath  to  some  tastes 
a  delicacy  beyond  the  China  luxury.  I  know  not  how 
thy  palate  may  relish  it ;  for  myself,  with  every  defer- 
ence to  the  judicious  Mr.  Read,  who  hath  time  out  of 
mind  kept  open  a  shop  (the  only  one  he  avers  in  London) 
for  the  vending  of  this  "  wholesome  and  pleasant  bever- 
age," on  the  south  side  of  Fleet  Street,  as  thou  approach- 
est  Bridge  Street — the  only  Salopian  house — I  have 
never  yet  ventured  to  dip  my  own  particular  lip  in  a 
basin  of  his  commended  ingredients — a  cautious  premo- 
nition to  the  olfactories  constantly  whispering  to  me, 
that  my  stomach  must  infallibly,  with  all  due  courtesy, 
decline  it.  Yet  I  have  seen  palates,  otherwise  not 
uninstructed  in  dietetical  elegancies,  sup  it  up  with 
avidity. 

I  know  not  by  what  particular  conformation  of  the 
organ  it  happens,  but  I  have  always  found  that  this 
composition  is  surprisingly  gratifying  to  the  palate  of  a 
young  chimney-sweeper  —  whether  the  oily  particles 
(sassafras  is  slightly  oleaginous)  do  attenuate  and  soften 
the  fuliginous  concretions,  which  are  sometimes  found 
(in  dissections)  to  adhere  to  the  roof  of  the  mouth  in 
these  unfledged  practitioners;  or  whether  Nature,  sensi- 
ble that  she  had  mingled  too  much  of  bitter  wood  in  the 


176  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

• 
lot  of  these  raw  victims,  caused  to  grow  out  of  the 

earth  her  sassafras  for  a  sweet  lenitive — but  so  it  is,  that 
no  possible  taste  or  odor  to  the  senses  of  a  young  chim- 
ney-sweeper can  convey  a  delicate  excitement  compar- 
able to  this  mixture.  Being  penniless,  they  will  yet 
hang  their  black  heads  over  the  ascending  steam,  to 
gratify  one  sense  if  possible,  seemingly  no  less  pleased 
than  those  domestic  animals — cats — when  they  purr  over 
a  new-found  sprig  of  valerian.  There  is  something 
more  in  these  sympathies  than  philosophy  can  incul- 
cate. 

!N"ow,  albeit  Mr.  Read  boasteth,  not  without  reason, 
that  his  is  the  only  Salopian  house ;  yet  be  it  known  to 
thee,  reader — if  thou  art  one  who  keepest  what  are 
called  good  hours,  thou  art  haply  ignorant  of  the  fact — 
he  hath  a  race  of  industrious  imitators,  who  from  stalls, 
and  under  open  sky,  dispense  the  same  savory  mess  to 
humbler  customers,  at  that  dead  time  of  the  dawn,  when 
(as  extremes  meet)  the  rake,  reeling  home  from  his  mid- 
night cups,  and  the  hard-handed  artisan  leaving  his  bed 
to  resume  the  premature  labors  of  the  day,  jostle,  not 
unfrequentlyto  the  manifest  disconcerting  of  the  former, 
for  the  honors  of  the  pavement.  It  is  the  time  when, 
in  summer,  between  the  expired  and  the  not  yet  relu- 
mined  kitchen-fires,  the  kennels  of  our  fair  metropolis 
give  forth  their  least  satisfactory  odors.  The  rake,  who 
wisheth  to  dissipate  his  o'ernight  vapors  in  more  grate- 
ful coffee,  curses  the  ungenial  fume,  as  he  passeth  ;  but 
the  artisan  stops  to  taste,  and  blesses  the  fragrant  break- 
fast. 

This  is  saloop — the  precocious  herb- woman's  darling 
— the  delight  of  the  early  gardener,  Vho  transports  his 
smoking  cabbages  by  break  of  day  from  Hammersmith 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.      177 

to  Oovent  Garden's  famed  piazzas — the  delight,  and  oh ! 
I  fear,  too  often  the  envy,  of  the  unpennied  sweep. 
Him  shouldst  thou  haply  encounter,  with  his  dim  visage 
pendent  over  the  grateful  steam,  regale  him  with  a 
sumptuous  hasin  (it  will  cost  thee  but  three-halfpennies) 
and  a  slice  of  delicate  bread-and-butter  (an  added  half- 
penny)— so  may  thy  culinary  fires,  eased  of  the  o'er- 
oharged  secretions  from  thy  worse-placed  hospitalities, 
curl  up  a  lighter  volume  to  the  welkin — so  may  the 
descending  soot  never  taint  thy  costly,  well-ingredienced 
soups — nor  the  odious  cry,  quick-reaching  from  street  to 
street,  of  the  jiredi  chimney^  invite  the  rattling  engines 
from  ten  adjacent  parishes,  to  disturb  for  a  casual  scin- 
tillation thy  peace  and  pocket ! 

I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of  street  af- 
fronts; the  jeers  and  taunts  of  the  populace;  the  low- 
bred triumph  they  display  over  the  casual  trip,  or  splashed 
stocking  of 'a  gentleman.  Yet  can  I  endure  the  joculari- 
ty of  a  young  sweep  with  something  more  than  forgive- 
ness.— In  the  last  winter  but  one,  pacing  along  Cheapsido 
with  my  accustomed  precipitation  when  I  walk  west- 
ward, a  treacherous  slide  brought  me  upon  my  back  in 
an  instant.  I  scrambled  up  with  pain  and  shame  enough 
— yet  outwardly  trying  to  face  it  down,  as  if  nothing  had 
happened — when  the  roguish  grin  of  one  of  these  young 
wits  encountered  me.  There  he  stood,  pointing  me  out 
with  his  dusky  finger  to  the  mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman 
(I  suppose  his  mother)  in  particular,  till  the  tears,  for  the 
exquisiteness  of  the  fun  (so  he  thought  it),  worked  them- 
selves out  at  the  corners  of  his  poor,  red  eyes,  red  from 
many  a  previous  weeping,  and  soot-inflamed,  yet  twin- 
kling through  all  with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of  deso- 
lation, that  Hogarth but  Hogarth  has  got  him  already 

12 


178  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

(how  could  he  miss  him?)  in  the  March  to  Finchley, 
grinning  at  the  pie-man — there  he  stood,  as  he  stands  in 
the  picture,  irremovable,  as  if  the  jest  were  to  last  for- 
ever— with  such  a  maximum  of  glee,  and  minimum  of 
mischief,  in  his  mirth — for  the  grin  of  a  genuine  sweep 
hath  absolutely  no  malice  in  it— that  I  could  have  been 
content,  if  the  honor  of  a  gentleman  might  endure  it,  to 
have  remained  his  butt  and  his  mockery  till  midnight. 

I  am  by  theory  obdurate  to  the  seductiveness  of  what 
are  called  a  fine  set  of  teeth.  Every  pair  of  rosy  lips 
(the  ladies  must  pardon  me)  is  a  casket  presumably  hold- 
ing such  jewels ;  but,  methinks,  they  should  take  leave  to 
"  air  "  them  as  frugally  as  possible.  The  fine  lady,  or  fine 
gentleman,  who  show  me  their  teeth,  show  me  bones. 
Yet  must  I  confess  that,  from  the  mouth  of  a  true  sweep 
a  display  (even  to  ostentation)  of  those  white  and  shining 
ossifications,  strikes  me  as  an  agreeable  ianomaly  in  man- 
ners, and  an  allowable  piece  of  foppery.    It  is,  as  when 

"A  sable  cloud 
Turns  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night." 

It  is  like  some  remnant  of  gentry  not  quite  extinct ;  a 
badge  of  better  days ;  a  hint  of  ijobility — and  doubtless, 
under  the  obscuring  darkness  and  double  night  of  their 
forlorn  disguisement,  oftentimes  lurketh  good  blood,  and 
gentle  conditions,  derived  from  lost  ancestry,  and  a 
lapsed  pedigree.  The  premature  apprenticements  of 
these  tender  victims  give  but  too  much  encouragement, 
I  fear,  to  clandestine  and  almost  infantile  abductions; 
the  seeds  of  civility  and  true  courtesy,  so  often  discerni- 
ble in  these  young  grafts  (not  otherwise  to  be  accounted 
for)  plainly  hint  at  some  forced  adoptions ;  many  noble 
Eachels  mourning  for  their  children,  even  in  our  days, 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.      179 

countenance  the  fact;  the  tales  of  fairy^spiriting  may- 
shadow  a  lamentable  verity,  and  the  recovery  of  the 
young  Montagu  be  but  a  solitary  instance  of  good  for- 
tune out  of  many  irreparable  and  hopeless  defiliations. 

In  one  of  tbe  state-beds  at  Arundel  Castle,  a  few 
years  since — under  a  ducal  canopy — (that  seat  of  the 
Howards  is  an  object  of  curiosity  to  visitors,  chiefly  for 
its  beds,  in  which  the  late  duke  was  especially  a  con- 
noisseur)— encircled  with  curtains  of  delicatest  crimson, 
with  starry  coronets  interwoven — folded  between  a  pair 
of  sheets  whiter  and  softer  than  the  lap  where  Yenus 
lulled  Ascanius — was  discovered  by  chance,  after  all  meth- 
ods of  search  had  failed,  at  noonday,  fast  asleep,  a  lost 
chimney-sweeper.  The  little  creature,  having  somehow 
confounded  his  passage  among  the  intricacies  of  those 
lordly  chimneys,  by  some  unknown  aperture  had  alighted 
upon  this  magnificent  chamber ;  and,  tired  with  his  tedi- 
ous explorations,  was  unable  to  resist  the  delicious  in- 
viteraent  to  repose  which  he  there  saw  exhibited ;  so, 
creeping  between  the  sheets  very  quietly,  laid  his  black 
head  upon  the  pillow,  and  slept  like  a  young  Howard. 

Such  is  the  account  given  to  the  visitors  at  the  Castle. 
— But  I  cannot  help  seeming  to  perceive  a  confirmation 
of  what  I  have  just  hinted  at  in  this  story.  A  high  in- 
stinct was  at  work  in  the  case,  or  I  am  mistaken.  Is  it 
probable  that  a  poor  child  of  that  description,  with  what- 
ever weariness  he  might  be  visited,  would  have  ventured, 
under  such  a  penalty  as  he  would  be  taught  to  expect,  to 
uncover  the  sheets  of  a  duke's  bed,  and  deliberately  to 
lay  himself  down  between  them,  when  the  rug,  or  the 
carpet,  presented  an  obvious  couch,  still  far  above  his 
pretensions — is  this  probable,  I  would  ask,  if  the  great 
power  of  Nature,  which  I  contend  for,  had  not  been 


180  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

manifested  within  hira,  prompting  to  the  adventure? 
Doubtless  this  young  nobleman  (for  such  my  mind  mis- 
gives me  that  he  must  be)  was  allured  by  some  memory, 
not  amounting  to  full  consciousness,  of  his  condition  in 
infancy,  when  he  was  used  to  be  lapped  by  his  mother, 
or  his  nurse,  in  just  such  sheets  as  he  there  found,  into 
which  he  was  now  but  creeping  back  as  into  his  proper 
incunabula,  and  resting-place.— By  no  other  theory  than 
by  this  sentiment  of  a  preexistent  state  (as  I  may  call  it), 
can  I  explain  a  deed  so  venturous,  and,  indeed,  upon  any 
other  system  so  indecorous,  in  this  tender,  but  unseason- 
able, sleeper. 

My  present  friend,  Jem  White,  was  so  impressed  with 
a  belief  of  metamorphoses  like  this  frequently  taking 
place,  that  in  some  sort  to  reverse  the  wrongs  of  fortune 
in  these  poor  changelings,  he  instituted  an  annual  feast 
of  chimney-sweepers,  at  which  it  was  his  pleasure  to 
officiate  as  host  and  waiter.  It  was  a  solemn  supper, 
held  in  Smithfield,  upon  the  yearly  return  of  the  fair 
of  St.  Bartholomew.  Cards  were  issued  a  week  before 
to  the  master-sweeps  in  and  about  the  metropolis,  con- 
fining the  invitation  to  their  younger  fry.  Now  and 
then  an  elderly  stripling  would  get  in  among, us,  and  be 
good-naturedly  winked  at;  but  our  main  body  were 
infantry.  One  unfortunate  wight,  indeed,  who,  relying 
upon  his  dusky  suit,  had  intruded  himself  into  our 
party,  but,  by  tokens,  was  providentially  discovered  in 
time  to  be  no  chimney-sweeper  (all  is  not  soot  which 
looks  so),  was  quoited  out  of  the  presence  with  uni- 
versal indignation,  as  not  having  on  the  wedding-gar- 
ment; but  in  general  the  greatest  harmony  prevailed. 
The  place  chosen  was  a  convenient  spot  among  the  pens, 
at  the  north  side  of  the  fair,  not  so  far  distant  as  to  be 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.      181 

impervious  to  the  agreeable  hubbub  of  that  vanity ;  but 
remote  enough  not  to  be  obvious  to  the  interruption 
of  every  gaping  spectator  in  it.  The  guests  assembled 
about  seven.  In  those  little  temporary  parlors  three 
tables  were  spread  with  napery,  not  so  fine  as  substan- 
tial, and  at  every  board  a  comely  hostess  presided  with 
her  pan  of  hissing  sausages.  The  nostrils  of  the  young 
rogues  dilated  at  the  savor.  James  White,  as  head- 
waiter,  had  charge  of  the  first  table ;  and  myself,  with 
Our  trusty  companion  Bigod,  ordinarily  ministered  to 
the  other  two.  There  was  clambering  and  jostling,  you 
may  be  sure,  who  should  get  at  the  first  table — for  Roch- 
ester, in  his  maddest  days,  could  not  have  done  the  hu- 
mors of  the  scene  with  more  spirit  than  my  friend. 
After  some  general  expression  of  thanks  for  the  honor 
the  company  had  done  him,  his  inaugural  ceremony  was 
to  clasp  the  greasy  waist  of  old  Dame  Ursula  (the  fattest 
of  the  three),  that  stood  frying  and  fretting,  half-blessing, 
half -cur  sing  "the  gentleman,''  and  imprint  upon  her 
chaste  lips  a  tender  salute,  whereat  the  universal  host 
would  set  up  a  shout  that  tore  the  concave,  while  hun- 
dreds of  grinning  teeth  startled  the  night  with  their 
brightness.  Oh,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  sable  youn- 
kers  lick  in  the  unctuous  meat,  with  Ms  more  unctuous 
sayings — how  he  would  fit  the  tit-bits  to  the  puny 
mouths,  reserving  the  lengthier  links  for  the  seniors — 
how  he  would  intercept  a  morsel  even  in  the  jaAvs  of 
some  young  desperado,  declaring  it  "  must  to  the  pan 
again  to  be  browned,  for  it  was  not  fit  for  a  gentleman's 
eating" — ^how  he  would  recommend  this  slice  of  white 
bread,  or  that  piece  of  kissing-crust,  to  a  tender  juvenile, 
advising  them  all  to  have  a  care  of  cracking  their  teeth, 
which  were  their  best  patrimony — how  genteelly  he 


182  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

would  deal  about  the  small  ale,  as  if  it  were  wine,  nam- 
ing the  brewer,  and  protesting,  if  it  were  not  good,  he 
should  lose  their  custom  ;  with  a  special  recommenda- 
tion to  wipe  the  lip  before  drinking.  Then  we  had  our 
toasts— "The  King"— "The  Cloth  "—which,  whether 
they  understood  or  not,  was  equally  diverting  and  flat- 
tering; and,  for  a  crowning  sentiment,  which  never 
failed,  *'May  the  Brush  supersede  the  Laurel  I  "  All 
these,  and  fifty  other  fancies,  which  were  rather  felt 
than  comprehended  by  his  guests,  would  he  utter,  stand- 
ing upon  tables,  and  prefacing  every  sentiment  with  a 
"  Gentlemen,  give  me  leave  to  propose  so  and  so,"  which 
was  a  prodigious  comfort  to  those  young  orphans ;  every 
now  and  then  stuflBng  into  his  mouth  (for  it  did  not  do 
to  be  squeamish  on  these  occasions)  indiscriminate  pieces 
of  those  reeking  sausages,  which  pleased  them  mightily, 
and  was  the  savoriest  part,  you  may  believe,  of  the  en- 
tertainment. 

"  Golden  lads  and  lasses  must, 
As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust." — 

James  White  is  extinct,  and  with  him  these  suppers  have 
long  ceased.  He  carried  away  with  him  half  the  fun  of 
the  world  when  he  died — of  my  world  at  least.  His  old 
clients  look  for  him  among  the  pens ;  and,  missing  him, 
reproach  the  altered  feast  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  the 
glory  of  Smithfield  departed  forever. 


COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.  183 
A  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS 

IN   THE   METEOPOLIS, 

'  The  all-sweeping  besom  of  societarian  reformation — 
your  only  modern  Alcides's  club  to  rid  the  time  of  its 
abuses — is  uplift  with  many-handed  sway  to  extirpate 
the  last  fluttering  tatters  of  the  bugbear  Mendicity  from 
the  metropolis.  Scrips,  wallets,  bags — staves,  dogs,  and 
crutches — the  whole  mendicant  fraternity,  with  all  their 
baggage,  are  fast  posting  out  of  the  purlieus  of  this 
eleventh  persecution.  From  the  crowded  crossing,  from 
the  corners  of  streets  and  turnings  of  alleys,  the  parting 
Genius  of  Beggary  is  "  with  sighing  sent." 

I  do  not  approve  of  this  wholesale  going  to  work, 
this  impertinent  crusado,  or  helium  ad  exterminationem^ 
proclaimed  against  a  species.  Much  good  might  be 
sucked  from  these  beggars. 

They  were  the  oldest  and  the  honor  ablest  form  of 
pauperism.  Their  appeals  were  to  our  common  nature ; 
less  revolting  to  an  ingenious  mind  than  to  be  a  supphant 
to  the  particular  humors  or  caprice  of  any  fellow-creat- 
ure, or  sdt  of  fellow-creatures,  parochial  or  societarian. 
Theirs  were  the  only  rates  uninvidious  in  the  levy,  un- 
grudged  in  the  assessment. 

There  was  a  dignity  springing  from  the  very  depth 
of  their  desolation;  as  to  be  naked  is  to  be  so  much 
nearer  to  the  being  a  man,  than  to  go  in  livery. 

The  greatest  spirits  have  felt  this  in  their  reverses ; 
and  when  Dionysius  from  king  turned  schoolmaster,  do 
we  feel  anything  toward  him  but  contempt?  Could 
Vandyck  have  made  a  picture  of  him  swaying  a  ferula 
for  a  sceptre  which  would  have  affected  our  minds  with 


184  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

the  same  heroic  pity,  the  same  compassionate  admira- 
tion, with  which  we  regard  his  Belisarius  begging  for  an 
obolum?  Would  the  moral  have  been  more  graceful, 
more  pathetic  ? 

The  Blind  Beggar  in  the  legend— the  father  of  pretty 
Bessy — whose  story  doggerel  rhymes  and  alehouse  signs 
cannot  so  degrade  or  attenuate,  but  that  some  sparks  of 
a  lustrous  spirit  will  shine  through  the  disguisements — 
this  noble  Earl  of  Cornwall  (as  indeed  he  was),  and  mem- 
orable sport  of  fortune,  fleeing  from  the  unjust  sentence 
of  his  liege  lord,  stripped  of  all,  and  seated  on  the  flower- 
ing green  of  Bethnal,  with  his  more  fresh  and  springing 
daughter  by  his  side,  illumining  his  rags  and  his  beg- 
gary— would  the  child  and  parent  have  cut  a  better 
figure,  doing  the  honors  of  a  counter,  or  expiating  their 
fallen  condition  upon  the  three-foot  eminence  of  some 
sempstering  shop-board  ? 

In  tale  or  history,  your  beggar  is  ever  the  just  an- 
tipode  to  your  king.  The  poets  and  romancical  writers 
(as  dear  Margaret  Newcastle  would  call  them),  when 
they  would  most  sharply  and  feelingly  paint  a  reverse 
of  fortune,  never  stop  till  they  have  brought  down 
their  hero  in  good  earnest  to  rags  and  the  wallet. 
The  depth  of  the  descent  illustrates  the  height  he 
falls  from.  There  is  no  medium  which  can  be  pre- 
sented to  the  imagination  without  offense.  There 
is  no  breaking  the  fall.  Lear,  thrown  from  his  palace, 
must  divest  him  of  his  garments,  till  he  answer  "  mere 
nature ; "  and  Oresseid,  fallen  from  a  prince's  love,  must 
extend  her  pale  arms,  pale  with  other  whiteness  than  of 
beauty,  supplicating  lazar  alms  with  bell  and  clap-dish. 

The  Lucian  wits  knew  this  very  well ;  and,  with  a 
converse  policy,  when  they  would  express  scorn  of  great- 


COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.  185 

ness  without  the  pity,  they  show  us  an  Alexander  in  the 
shades  cobbling  shoes,  or  a  Semiramis  getting  np  foul 
linen. 

How  would  it  sound  in  song,  that  a  great  monarch 
had  declined  his  affections  upon  the  daughter  of  a  baker ! 
yet  do  we  feel  the  imagination  at  all  violated  when  we 
read  the  "  true  ballad,"  where  King  Oophetua  woos  the 
beggar-maid  ? 

Pauperism,  pauper,  poor  man,  are  expressions  of  pity, 
but  pity  alloyed  with  contempt.  JtsTo  one  properly  con- 
temns a  beggar.  Poverty  is  a  comparative  thing,  and 
each  degree  of  it  is  mocked  by  its  *'  neighbor  grice."  Its 
poor-rents  and  comings-in  are  soon  summed  up  and  told. 
Its  pretenses  to  property  are  almost  ludicrous.  Its  piti- 
ful attempts  to  save  excite  a  smile.  Every  scornful  com- 
panion can  weigh  his  trifle-bigger  purse  against  it.  Poor 
man  reproaches  poor  man  in  the  streets  with  impolitic 
mention  of  his  condition,  his  own  being  a  shade  better, 
while  the  rich  pass  by  and  jeer  at  both.  No  rascally 
comparative  insults  a  Beggar,  or  thinks  of  weighing 
purses  with  him.  He  is  not  in  the  scale  of  comparison. 
He  is  not  under  the  measure  of  property.  He  confess- 
edly hath  none,  any  more  than  a  dog  or  a  sheep.  ISTo  one 
twitteth  him  with  ostentation  above  his  means.  No  one 
accuses  him  of  pride,  or  upbraid  eth  him  with  mock  hu- 
mility. None  jostle  with  him  for  the  wall,  or  pick  quar- 
rels for  precedency.  No  wealthy  neighbor  seeketh  to 
ej  ect  hira  from  his  tenement.  No  man  sues  him.  No  man 
goes  to  law  with  him.  If  I  were  not  the  independent 
gentleman  that  I  am,  rather  than  I  would  be  a  retainer 
to  the  great,  a  led  captain,  or  a  poor  relation,  I  would 
choose,  out  of  the  delicacy  and  true  greatness  of  my 
mind,  to  be  a  Beggar. 


186  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

Bags,  which  are  the  reproach  of  poverty,  are  the 
Beggar's  robes,  and  graceful  insignia  of  his  profession, 
his  tenure,  his  full  dress,  the  suit  in  which  he  is  expect- 
ed to  show  himself  in  public.  He  is  never  out  of  the 
fashion,  or  limpeth  awkwardly  behind  it.  He  is  not  re- 
quired to  put  on  court  mourning.  He  weareth  all  colors, 
fearing  none.  His  costume  hath  undergone  less  change 
than  the  Quaker's.  He  is  the  only  man  in  the  universe 
who  is  not  obliged  to  study  appearances.  The  ups  and 
downs  of  the  world  concern  him  no  longer.  He  alone 
continueth  in  one  stay.  The  price  of  stock  or  land  af- 
fecteth  him  not.  The  fluctuations  of  agricultural  or  com- 
mercial prosperity  touch  him  not,  or  at  worst  but  change 
his  customers.  He  is  not  expected  to  become  bail  or  sure- 
ty for  any  one.  No  man  troubleth  him  with  questioning 
his  religion  or  politics.  He  is  the  only  free  man  in  the 
universe. 

The  Mendicants  of  this  great  city  were  so  many  of 
her  sights,  her  lions.  I  can  no  more  spare  them  than  I 
could  the  Cries  of  London.  No  corner  of  a  street  is 
complete  without  them.  They  are  as  indispensable  as 
the  Ballad-Singer ;  and  in  their  picturesque  attire  as  or- 
namental as  the  signs  of  old  London.  They  were  the 
standing  morals,  emblems,  mementoes,  dial-mottos,  the 
spital  sermons,  the  books  for  children,  the  salutary 
check  and  pauses  to  the  high  and  rushing  tide  of  greasy 
citizenry — 

—"Look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there." 

Above  all,  those  old  blind  Tobits  that  used  to  line  the 
wall  of  Lincoln's-Inn  Garden,  before  modern  fastidious- 
ness had  expelled  them,  casting  up  their  ruined  orbs  to 


COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.  187 

catch  a  ray  of  pity,  and  (if  possible)  of  light,  with  their 
faithful  Dog  Guide  at  their  feet — whither  are  they  fled  ? 
or  into  what  corners,  blind  as  themselves,  have  they  been 
driven,  out  of  the  wholesome  air  and  sun-warmth?  im- 
mersed between  four  walls,  in  what  withering  poor- 
house  do  they  endure  the  penalty  of  double  darkness, 
where  the  chink  of  the  dropped  half-penny  no  more  con- 
soles their  forlorn  bereavement,  far  from  the  sound  of 
the  cheerful  and  hope-stirring  tread  of  the  passenger  ? 
Where  hang  their  useless  staves?  and  who  will  farm 
their  dogs  ? — Have  the  overseers  of  St.  L —  caused  them 
to  be  shot?  or  were  they  tied  up  in  sacks,  and  dropped 
into  the  Thames,  at  the  suggestion  of  B — ,  the  mild  rec- 
tor of  B ? 

Well  fare  the  soul  of  unfastidious  Yincent  Bourne, 
most  classical,  and,  at  the  same  time,  most  English  of  the 
Latinists ! — who  has  treated  of  this  human  and  quadru- 
pedal alliance,  this  dog  and  man  friendship,  in  the  sweet- 
est of  his  poems,  the  Epitaphium  in  Canem^  or  Dog^s 
Epitaph,  Keader,  peruse  it ;  and  say,  if  customary  sights, 
which  would  call  up  such  gentle  poetry  as  this,  were  of  a 
nature  to  do  more  harm  or  good  to  the  moral  sense  of  the 
passengers  through  the  daily  thoroughfares  of  a  vast  and 
busy  metropolis : 

"  Pauperis  hie  Iri  requiesco  Lyciscus,  herilis, 
Dum  vixi,  tutela  vigil  columenque  senectae, 
Dux  CJECO  fidus :  nee,  me  ducente,  solebat, 
Prsetenso  hinc  atque  hinc  baculo,  per  iniqua  locorum 
Incertam  explorare  viam  ;  sed  fila  secutus, 
Quae  dubios  regerent,  passus,  vestigia  tuta 
Fixit  inoffenso  gressu ;  gelidumque  sedile 
In  nudo  nactus  saxo,  qu4  praetereuntium 
Unda  frequens  confluxit,  ibi  raiserisque  tenebras 


188  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

Lamentis,  noctemque  oculis  ploravit  obortam. 
Ploravit  nee  frustra ;  obolum  dedit  alter  et  alter, 
Quels  corda  et  mentem  indiderat  natura  benignam. 
Ad  latus  interea  jacui  sopitus  herile, 
Vel  mediis  vigil  in  soranis  ;  ad  herilia  jussa 
Auresque  atque  animum  arrectus,  seu  frustula  araic5 
Porrexit  sociasque  dapes,  seu  longa  diei 
Taedia  perpessus,  reditum  sub  nocte  parabat, 
Hi  mores,  haec  vita  fuit,  dura  fata  sinebant, 
Dum  neque  languebam  morbis,  nee  inerte  senecta ; 
Quae  tandem  obrepsit,  veterique  satellite  cwcum 
Orbavit  doninum :  prisci  sed  gratia  f acti 
Nc  tota  intereat,  longos  delecta  per  annos, 
Exiguum  hunc  Irus  tumulum  de  cespite  fecit, 
Etsi  inopis,  non  ingratse,  munuscula  dextrae ; 
Carmine  signavitque  brevi,  dominumque  canemque 
Quod  memoret,  fiduraque  canem  dominumque  benignum.'^ 

"Poor  Irus'  faithful  wolf-dog  here  I  lie, 
That  wont  to  tend  my  old  blind  master's  steps, 
His  guide  and  guard :  nor,  while  my  service  lasted 
Had  he  occasion  for  that  staff,  with  which 
He  new  goes  picking  out  his  path  in  fear 
Over  the  highways  and  crossings ;  but  would  plant, 
Safe  in  the  conduct  of  my  friendly  string, 
A  firm  foot  forward  still,  till  he  had  reached 
His  poor  seat  on  some  stone,  nigh  where  the  tide 
Of  passers-by  in  thickest  confluence  flowed : 
To  whom  with  loud  and  passionate  laments 
From  morn  to  eve  his  dark  estate  he  wailed. 
Nor  wailed  to  all  in  vain :  some  here  and  there, 
The  well-disposed  and  good,  their  pennies  gave, 
I  meantime  at  his  feet  obsequious  slept ; 
Not  all-asleep  in  sleep,  but  heart  and  ear 
Pricked  up  at  his  least  motion ;  to  receive 


COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.  189 

At  his  kind  hand  my  customary  crumbs, 

And  common  portion  in  his  feast  of  scraps ; 

Or  when  night  warned  us  homeward,  tired  and  spent 

With  our  long  day  and  tedious  beggary. 

These  were  my  manners,  this  my  way  of  life, 
Till  age  and  slow  disease  me  overtook, 
And  severed  from  my  sightless  master's  side. 
But  lest  the  grace  of  so  good  deeds  should  die, 
Through  tract  of  years  in  mute  oblivion  lost. 
This  slender  tomb  of  turf  hath  Irus  reared. 
Cheap  monument  of  no  ungrudging  hand. 
And  with  short  verse  inscribed  it,  to  attest, 
In  long  and  lasting  union  to  attest, 
The  virtues  of  the  Beggar  and  his  Dog." 

These  dim  eyes  have  in  vain  explored  for  some 
months  past  a  well-known  figure,  or  part  of  the  figure 
of  a  man,  who  used  to  glide  his  comely  upper  half  over 
the  pavements  of  London,  wheeling  along  with  most  in- 
genious celerity  upon  a  machine  of  wood ;  a  spectacle  to 
natives,  to  foreigners,  and  to  children.  He  was  of  a  ro- 
bust make,  with  a  florid,  sailor-like  complexion,  and  his 
head  was  bare  to  the  storm  and  sunshine.  He  was  a 
natural  curiosity,  a  speculation  to  the  scientific,  a  prodi- 
gy to  the  simple.  The  infant  would  stare  at  the  mighty 
man  brought  down  to  his  own  level.  The  common  crip- 
ple would  despise  his  own  pusillanimity,  viewing  the 
hale  stoutness,  and  hearty  heart,  of  this  half-limbed  gi- 
ant. Few  but  must  have  noticed  him ;  for  the  accident, 
which  brought  him  low,  took  place  during  the  riots  of 
1780,  and  he  has  been  a  groundling  so  long.  He  seemed 
^arth-born,  an  Antaeus,  and  to  suck  in  fresh  vigor  from 
the  soil  which  he  neighbored.  He  was  a  grand  frag- 
ment ;  as  good  as  an  Elgin  marble.    The  nature,  which 


190  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

should  have  recruited  his  reft  legs  and  thighs,  was  not 
lost,  but  only  retired  into  his  upper  parts,  and  he  was 
half  a  Hercules.  I  heard  a  tremendous  voice  thundering 
and  growling,  as  before  an  earthquake,  and  casting  down 
my  eyes,  it  was  this  mandrake  reviling  a  steed  that  had 
started  at  his  portentous  appearance.  He  seemed  to 
want  but  his  just  stature  to  have  rent  the  offending  quad- 
ruped  in  shivers.  He  was  as  the  man-part  of  a  centaur, 
from  which  the  horse-half  had  been  cloven  in  some  dire 
Lapithan  controversy.  He  moved  on,  as  if  he  could 
have  made  shift  with  yet  half  of  tie  body  portion  which 
was  left  him.  The  os  sublime  was  not  wanting ;  and  he 
threw  out  yet  a  jolly  countenance  upon  the  heavens.  For- 
ty-and-two  years  had  he  driven  this  out-of-door  trade,  and 
now  that  his  hair  is  grizzled  in  the  service,  but  his  good 
spirits  no  way  impaired,  because  he  is  not  content  to 
exchange  his  free  air  and  exercise  for  the  restraints  of  a 
poor-house,  he  is  expiating  his  contumacy  in  one  of  those 
houses  (ironically  christened)  of  Correction. 

Was  a  daily  spectacle  like  this  to  be  deemed  a  nui- 
sance, which  called  for  legal  interference  to  remove?  or 
not  rather  a  salutary  and  a  touching  object,  to  the  pass- 
ers-by in  a  great  city?  Among  her  shows,  her  museums, 
and  supplies  for  ever-gaping  curiosity  (and  what  else  but 
an  accumulation  of  sights — endless  sights — is  a  great 
city;  or  for  what  else  is  it  desirable?)  was  there  not 
room  for  one  Lusus  (not  Naturm^  indeed,  but)  Acciden- 
tiumf  What  if,  in  forty-and-two  years'  going  about,  the 
man  had  scraped  together  enough  to  give  a  portion  to 
his  child  (as  the  rumor  ran),  of  a  few  hundreds — whom 
had  he  injured? — whom  had  he  imposed  upon?  Th^ 
contributors  had  enjoyed  their  sight  for  their  pennies. 
What  if  after  being  exposed  all  day  to  the  heats,  the  rains, 


COMPLAINT  OF  THE  DECAY  OF  BEGGARS.  191 

and  the  frosts  of  heaven — shuffling  his  ungainly  trunk 
along  in  an  elaborate  and  painful  motion — he  was  ena- 
bled to  retire  at  night  to  enjoy  himself  at  a  club  of  his 
fellow-cripples  over  a  dish  of  hot  meat  and  vegetables, 
as  the  charge  was  gravely  brought  against  him  by  a  cler- 
gyman deposing  before  a  House  of  Commons'  Commit- 
tee— was  tJiis^  or  was  his  truly  paternal  consideration, 
which  (if  a  fact)  deserved  a  statue  rather  than  a  whip- 
ping-post, and  is  inconsistent  at  least  with  the  exaggera- 
tion of  nocturnal  orgies  which  he  has  been  slandered 
with — a  reason  that  he  should  be  deprived  of  his  chosen, 
harmless,  nay  edifying,  way  of  life,  and  be  committed  in 
hoary  age  for  a  sturdy  vagabond  ? — 

There  was  a  Yorick  once,  whom  it  would  not  have 
shamed  to  have  sate  down  at  the  cripples'  feast,  and  to 
have  thrown  in  his  benediction,  ay,  and  his  mite,  too, 
for  a  companionable  symbol.  "  Age,  thou  hast  lost  thy 
breed." — 

Half  of  these  stories  about  the  prodigious  fortunes 
made  by  begging  are  (I  verily  believe)  misers'  calumnies. 
One  was  much  talked  of  in  the  public  papers  some  time 
since,  and  the  usual  charitable  inferences  deduced.  A 
clerk  in  the  Bank  was  surprised  with  the  announcement 
of  a  five-hundred-pound  legacy  left  him  by  a  person 
whose  name  he  was  a  stranger  to.  It  seems  that  in  his 
daily  morning  walks  from  Peckham  (or  some  village 
thereabouts),  where  he  lived,  to  his  office,  it  had  been  his 
practice  for  the  last  twenty  years  to  drop  his  halfpenny 
duly  into  the  hat  of  some  blind  Bartimeus,  that  sate  beg- 
ging alms  by  the  wayside  in  the  Borough.  The  good 
old  beggar  recognized  his  daily  benefactor  by  the  voice 
only;  and,  when  he  died,  left  all  the  amassings  of  his 
alms  (that  had  been  half  a  century,  perhaps,  in  the  accu- 


192  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

mulating)  to  his  old  Bank  friend.  Was  this  a  story  to 
purse  up  people's  hearts,  and  pennies,  against  giving  an 
alms  to  the  blind  ? — or  not  rather  a  beautiful  moral  of 
well-directed  charity  on  the  one  part,  and  noble  grati- 
tude upon  the  other. 

I  sometimes  wish  I  had  been  that  Bank-clerk. 

I  seem* to  remember  a  poor,  old,  grateful  kind  of 
creature,  blinking,  and  looking  up  with  his  no  eyes  in 
the  sun — 

Is  it  possible  I  could  have  steeled  my  purse  against 
him? 

Perhaps  I  had  no  small  change. 

Reader,  do  not  be  frightened  at  the  hard  words,  im- 
position, imposture— give,  and  ash  no  questions.  Oast 
thy  bread  upon  the  waters.  Some  have,  unawares  (like 
this  Bank-clerk),  entertained  angels. 

Shut  not  thy  purse-strings  always  against  painted  dis- 
tress. Act  a  charity  sometimes.  When  a  poor  creat- 
ure (outwardly  and  visibly  such)  comes  before  thee,  do 
not  stay  to  inquire  whether  the  "  seven  small  children," 
in  whose  name  he  implores  thy  assistance,  have  a  veri- 
table existence.  Rake  not  into  the  bowels  of  unwel- 
come truth,  to  save  a  halfpenny.  It  is  good  to  believe 
him.  If  he  be  not  all  that  he  pretendeth,  give,  and 
under  a  personate  father  of  a  family,  think  (if  thou 
pleasest)  that  thou  hast  relieved  an  indigent  bachelor. 
When  they  come  with  their  counterfeit  looks,  and  mump- 
ing tones,  think  them  players.  You  pay  your  money  to 
see  a  comedian  feign  these  things,  which,  concerning 
these  poor  people,  thou  canst  not  certainly  tell  whether 
they  are  feigned  or  not. 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST-PIG.         193 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST-PIG. 

Mankind,  says  a  Chinese  manuscript,  which  my 
friend  M.  was  obliging  enough  to  read  and  explain  to 
me,  for  the  first  seventy  thousand  ages  ate  their  meat 
raw,  clawing  or  biting  it  from  the  living  animal,  just 
as  they  do  in  Abyssinia  to  this  day.  This  period  is  not 
obscurely  hinted  at  by  their  great  Confucius  in  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  his  *'  Mundane  Mutations,"  where  he  des- 
ignates a  kind  of  golden  age  by  the  term  Cho-fang,  lit- 
erally the  Cooks'  Holiday.  The  manuscript  goes  on  to 
say  that  the  art  of  roasting,  or  rather  broiling  (which  I 
take  to  be  the  elder  brother)  was  accidentally  discovered 
in  the  manner  following :  The  swineherd,  Ho-ti,  having 
gone  out  into  the  woods  one  morning,  as  his  manner 
was,  to  collect  mast  for  his  hogs,  left  his  cottage  in  the 
care  of  his  eldest  son,  Bo-bo,  a  great,  lubberly  boy, 
who,  being  fond  of  playing  with  fire,  as  younkers  of  his 
age  commonly  are,  let  some  sparks  escape  into  a  bundle 
of  straw,  which,  kindling  quickly,  spread  the  conflagra- 
tion over  every  part  of  their  poor  mansion,  till  it  was 
reduced  to  ashes.  Together  with  the  cottage  (a  sorry, 
antediluvian,  makeshift  of  a  building,  you  may  think  it), 
what  was  of  much  more  importance,  a  fine  litter  of  new- 
farrowed  pigs,  no  less  than  nine  in  number,  perished. 
China  pigs  have  been  esteemed  a  luxury  all  over  the 
East,  from  the  remotest  periods  that  we  read  of.  Bo-bo 
was  in  the  utmost  consternation,  as  you  may  think,  not 
so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  tenement,  which  his  father 
and  he  could  easily  build  up  again  with  a  few  dry 
branches,  and  the  labor  of  an  hour  or  two,  at  any  time, 
as  for  the  loss  of  the  pigs.     While  he  was  thinking 

13 


194  THE   ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

what  he  should  say  to  his  father,  and  wringing  his  hands 
over  the  smoking  remnants  of  one  of  those  untimely 
sufferers,  an  odor  assailed  his  nostrils,  unlike  any  scent 
which  he  had  before  experienced.  What  could  it  pro- 
ceed from  ? — not  from  the  burned  cottage — he  had  smelt 
that  smell  before — ^indeed,  this  was  by  no  means  the  first 
accident  of  the  kind  which  had  occurred  through  the 
negligence  of  this  unlucky  young  fire-brand.  Much  less 
did  it  resemble  that  of  any  known  herb,  weed,  or  flower. 
A  premonitory  moistening  at  the  same  time  overflowed 
his  nether  lip.  He  knew  not  what  to  think.  He  next 
stooped  down  to  feel  the  pig,  if  there  were  any  signs  of 
life  in  it.  He  burned  his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he 
applied  them  in  his  booby  fashion  to  his  mouth.  Some 
of  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched  skin  had  come  away  with 
his  fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  (in  the 
world's  life,  indeed,  for  before  him  no  man  had  known 
it)  he  tasted — cracTcling  !  Again  he  felt  and  fumbled  at 
the  pig.  It  did  not  burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he 
licked  his  fingers  from  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at 
length  broke  into  his  slow  understanding  that  it  was  the 
pig  that  smelt  so,  and  the  pig  that  tasted  so  delicious ; 
and  surrendering  himself  up  to  the  new-born  pleasure, 
he  fell  to  tearing  up  whole  handfuls  of  the  scorched  skin 
with  the  flesh  next  it,  and  was  cramming  it  down  his 
throat  in  his  beastly  fashion,  when  his  sire  entered  amid 
the  smoking  rafters,  armed  with  retributory  cudgel,  and 
finding  how  affairs  stood,  began  to  rain  blows  upon  the 
young  rogue's  shoulders,  as  thick  as  hailstones,  which 
Bo-bo  heeded  not  any  more  than  if  they  had  been  flies. 
The  tickling  pleasure,  which  he  experienced  in  his  lower 
regions,  had  rendered  him  quite  callous  to  any  incon- 
veniences he  might  feel  in  those  remote  quarters.    His 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST-PIG.         195 

father  might  lay  on,  but  he  could  not  beat  him  from  his 
pig,  till  he  had  fairly  made  an  end  of  it,  when,  becoming 
a  little  more  sensible  of  his  situation,  something  like  the 
following  dialogue  ensued : 

"  You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got  there  de- 
vouring ?  Is  it  not  enough  that  you  have  burned  me 
down  three  houses  with  your  dog's  tricks,  and  be  hanged 
to  you !  but  you  must  be  eating  fire,  and  I  know  not 
what — what  have  you  got  there,  I  say? " 

*'  O  father,  the  pig,  the  pig!  do  come  and  taste  how 
nice  the  burnt  pig  eats !  " 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  with  horror.  He  cursed 
his  son,  and  he  cursed  himself  that  ever  he  should  beget 
a  son  that  should  eat  burnt  pig. 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfully  sharpened  since 
morning,  soon  raked  out  another  pig,  and  fairly  rending 
it  asunder,  thrust  the  lesser  half  by  main  force  into  the 
fists  of  Ho-ti,  still  shouting  out,  *'Eat,  eat,  eat  the  burnt 
pig,  father,  only  taste — O  Lord !  " — with  such-like  bar- 
barous ejaculations,  cramming  all  the  while  as  if  he  would 
choke. 

Ho-ti  trembled  every  joint  while  he  grasped  the 
abominable  thing,  wavering  whether  he  should  not  put 
his  son  to  death  for  an  unnatural  young  monster,  when 
the  crackling  scorching  his  fingers,  as  it  had  done  his 
son's,  and  applying  the  same  remedy  to  them,  he  in  his 
turn  tasted  some  of  its  flavor,  which,  make  what  sour 
mouths  he  would  for  pretense,  proved  not  altogether 
displeasing  to  him.  In  cooclusion  (for  the  manuscript 
here  is  a  little  tedious)  both  father  and  son  fairly  set 
down  to  the  mess,  and  never  left  ofi*  till  they  had  dis- 
patched all  that  remained  of  the  litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  secret  es- 


196  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

cape,  for  the  neighbors  would  certainly  have  stoned 
them  for  a  couple  of  abominable  wretches,  who  could 
think  of  improving  upon  the  good  meat  which  God  had 
sent  them.  Nevertheless,  strange  stories  got  about.  It 
was  observed  that  Ho-ti's  cottage  was  burnt  down  now 
more  frequently  than  ever.  Nothing  but  fires  from  this 
time  forward.  Some  would  break  out  in  broad  day, 
others  in  the  night-time.  As  often  as  the  sow  farrowed, 
so  sure  was  the  house  of  Ho-ti  to  be  in  a  blaze ;  and 
Ho-ti  himself,  which  was  the  more  remarkable,  instead 
of  chastising  his  son,  seemed  to  grow  more  indulgent  to 
him  than  ever.  At  length  they  were  watched,  the  terri- 
rible  mystery  discovered,  and  father  and  son  summoned 
to  take  their  trial  at  Peking,  then  an  inconsiderable  assize 
town.  Evidence  was  given,  the  obnoxious  food  itself 
produced  in  court,  and. verdict  about  to  be  pronounced, 
when  the  foreman  of  the  jury  begged  that  some  of  the 
burnfc  pig,  of  which  the  culprits  stood  accused,  might  be 
handed  into  the  box.  He  handled  it,  and  they  all  han- 
dled it ;  and  burning  their  fingers,  as  Bo-bo  and  his  father 
had  done  before  them,  and  Nature  prompting  to  each  of 
them  the  same  remedy,  against  the  face  of  all  the  facts, 
and  the  clearest  charge  which  judge  had  ever  given — to 
the  surprise  of  the  whole  court,  townsfolk,  strangers, 
reporters,  and  all  present — without  leaving  the  box,  or 
any  manner  of  consultation  whatever,  they  brought  in  a 
simultaneous  verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  winked  at  the 
manifest  iniquity  of  the  decision :  and  when  the  court 
was  dismissed,  went  privily,  and  bought  up  all  the  pigs 
that  could  be  had  for  love  or  money.  In  a  few  days  his 
Lordship's  town-house  was  observed  to  be  on  fire.  The 
thing  took  wing,  and  now  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST-PIG.         197 

but  fire  in  every  direction.  Fuel  and  pigs  grew  enor- 
mously dear  all  over  the  district.  The  insurance-ofllces 
one  and  all  shut  up  shop.  People  built  slighter  and 
slighter  every  day,  until  it  was  feared  that  the  very  sci- 
ence of  architecture  would,  in  no  long  time,  be  lost  to 
the  world.  Thus  this  custom  of  firing  houses  continued, 
till  in  process  of  time,  says  my  manuscript,  a  sage  arose, 
like  our  Locke,  who  made  a  discovery,  that  the  flesh  of 
swine,  or  indeed,  of  any  other  animal,  might  be  cooked 
(burnt,  as  they  called  it)  without  the  necessity  of  con- 
suming a  whole  house  to  dress  it.  Then  first  began  the 
rude  form  of  a  gridiron.  Roasting  by  the  string  or  spit 
came  in  a  century  or  two  later,  I  forget  in  whose  dynasty. 
By  such  slow  degrees,  concludes  the  manuscript,  do  the 
most  useful,  and  seemingly  the  most  obvious  arts,  make 
their  way  among  mankind. — 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  account 
above  given,  it  must  be  agreed  that,  if  a  worthy  pretext 
for  so  dangerous  an  experiment  as  setting  houses  on  fire 
(especially  in  these  days)  could  be  assigned  in  favor  of 
any  culinary  object,  that  pretext  and  excuse  might  be 
found  in  eoast-pig. 

Of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  whole  mundus  edibilis,  I 
will  maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate— ^ri/ic^^s  obso- 
niorum. 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers — things  between 
pig  and  pork — those  hobbydehoys — but  a  young  and  ten- 
der suckling — under  a  moon  old — guiltless,  as  yet,  of  the 
sty — with  no  original  speck  of  the  a7nor  immunditice,  the 
hereditary  failing  of  the  first  parent,  yet  manifest — ^his 
voice,  as  yet,  not  broken,  but  something  between  a 
childish  treble  and  a  grumble — the  mild  forerunner,  or 
prcdudium  of  a  grunt. 


198  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

He  imtst  he  roasted,  I  am  not  ignorant  that  our  an- 
cestors ate  them  seethed,  or  boiled — but  what  a  sacrifice 
of  the  exterior  tegument ! 

There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  contend,  to  that 
of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched,  not  over-roasted, 
cr adding^  as  it  is  well  called — the  very  teeth  are  invited 
to  their  share  of  the  pleasure  at  this  banquet  in  over- 
coming the  coy,  brittle  resistance — with  the  adhesive 
oleaginous— oh,  call  it  not  fat !  but  an  indefinable  sweet- 
ness growing  up  to  it — the  tender  blossoming  of  fat — 
fat  cropped  in  the  bud — taken  in  the  shoot — in  the  first 
innocence — the  cream  and  quintessence  of  the  child-pig's 

yet  pure  food the  lean,  no  lean,  but  a  kind  of  animal 

manna — or  rather,  fat  and  lean  (if  it  must  be  so)  so 
blended  and  running  into  each  other,  that  both  together 
make  but  one  ambrosian  result,  or  common  substance. 

Behold  him,  while  he  is  "doing" — it  seemeth  rather 
a  refreshing  warmth,  than  a  scorching  heat,  that  he  is  so 
passive  to.  How  equably  he  twirleth  round  the  string ! 
— Now  he  is  just  done.  To  see  the  extreme  sensibility 
of  that  tender  age!  he  hath  wept  out  his  pretty  eyes — 
radiant  jellies — shooting-stars. — 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how  meek  he 
lieth ! — wouldst  thou  have  had  this  innocent  grow  up  to 
the  grossness  and  indocility  which  too  often  accompany 
maturer  swinehood  ?  Ten  to  one  he  would  have  proved 
a  glutton,  a  sloven,  an  obstinate,  disagreeable  animal — 
wallowing  in  all  manner  of  filthy  conversation — from 
these  sins  he  is  happily  snatched  away — 

"  Ere  sin  could  blight  or  sorrow  fade ; 
Death  came  with  timely  care — " 

His  memory  is  odoriferous — no  clown  curseth,  while  his 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST-PIG.         199 

stomach  half  rejecteth,  the  rank  bacon — no  coal-heaver 
bolteth  him  in  reeking  sausages — he  hath  a  fair  sepulchre 
in  the  grateful  stomach  of  the  judicious  epicure — and  for 
such  a  tomb  might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  sapors.  Pineapple  is  great.  She  is, 
indeed,  almost  too  transcendent — a  delight,  if  not  sinful, 
yet  so  like  to  sinning  that  really  a  tender-conscienced 
person  would  do  well  to  pause — too  ravishing  for  mortal 
taste,  she  woundeth  and  excoriateth  the  lips  that  approach 
her — ^like  lovers'  kisses,  she  biteth — she  is  a  pleasure  bor- 
dering on  pain  from  the  fierceness  and  insanity  of  her 
relish — but  she  stoppeth  at  the  palate — she  meddleth  not 
with  the  appetite — and  the  coarsest  hunger  might  barter 
her  consistently  for  a  mutton-chop. 

Pig — ^let  me  speak  his  praise — is  no  less  provocative 
of  the  appetite,  than  he  is  satisfactory  to  the  criticalness 
of  the  censorious  palate.  The  strong  man  may  batten  on 
him,  and  the  weakling  refuseth  not  his  mild  juices. 

Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bundle  of 
virtues  and  vices,  inexplicably  intertwisted,  and  not  to 
be  unraveled  without  hazard,  he  is— good  throughout. 
No  part  of  him  is  better  or  worse  than  another.  He 
helpeth,  as  far  as  his  little  means  extend,  all  around. 
He  is  the  least  envious  of  banquets.  He  is  all  neighbors' 
fare. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  freely  and  ungrudgingly  im- 
part a  share  of  the  good  things  of  this  life  which  fall  to 
their  lot  (few  as  mine  are  in  this  kind)  to  a  friend.  I 
protest  I  take  as  great  an  interest  in  my  friend's  pleas- 
ures, his  relishes,  and  proper  satisfactions,  as  in  mine 
own.  "Presents,"  I  often  say,  "endear  Absents." 
Hares,  pheasants,  partridges,  snipes,  barn-door  chickens 
(those  "tame  villatio  fowl"),  capons,  plovers,  brawn, 


200  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

barrels  of  oysters,  I  dispense  as  freely  as  I  receive  them. 
I  love  to  taste  them,  as  it  were,  upon  the  tongue  of  my 
friend.  But  a  stop  must  be  put  somewhere.  One  would 
not,  like  Lear,  "give  everything."  I  make  my  stand 
upon  pig.  Methinks  it  is  an  ingratitude  to  the  Giver  of 
all  good  flavors,  to  extra-domiciliate,  or  send  out  of  the 
house,  slightingly  (under  pretext  of  friendship,  or  I  know 
not  what),  a  blessing  so  particularly  adapted,  predes- 
tined, I  may  say,  to  my  individual  palate.  It  argues  an 
insensibility. 

I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind  at 
school.  My  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted  from  me 
at  the  end  of  a  holiday  without  stuffing  a  sweetmeat,  or 
some  nice  thing,  into  my  pocket,  had  dismissed  me  one 
evening  with  a  smoking  plum-cake,  fresh  from  the  oven. 
In  my  way  to  school  (it  was  over  London  bridge)  a  gray- 
headed  old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have  no  doubt,  at  this 
time  of  day,  that  he  was  a  counterfeit).  I  had  no  pence 
to  console  him  with,  and  in  the  vanity  of  self-denial,  and 
the  very  coxcombry  of  charity,  schoolboy-like,  I  made 
liim  a  present  of — the  whole  cake !  I  walked  on  a  little, 
buoyed  up,  as  one  is  on  such  occasions,  with  a  sweet 
soothing  of  self-satisfaction ;  but  before  I  had  got  to  the 
end  of  the  bridge,  mj  better  feelings  returned,  and  I 
burst  into  tears,  thinking  how  ungrateful  I  had  been  to 
my  good  aunt,  to  go  and  give  her  good  gift  away  to  a 
stranger  that  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  who  might  be 
a  bad  man  for  aught  I  knew ;  and  then  I  thought  of  the 
pleasure  my  aunt  would  be  taking  in  thinking  that  I — I 
myself,  and  not  another — would  eat  her  nice  cake — and 
what  should  I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I  saw  her — how 
naughty  I  was  to  part  with  her  pretty  present ! — and  the 
odor  of  that  spicy  cake  came  back  upon  my  recollection, 


A  DISSERTATION   UPON   ROAST-PIG.         201 

and  the  pleasure  and  the  curiosity  I  had  taken  in  seeing 
her  make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  had  sent  it  to  the 
oven,  and  how  disappointed  she  would  feel  that  I  had 
never  had  a  bit  of  it  in  my  mouth  at  last — and  I  blamed 
my  impertinent  spirit  of  alms-giving,  and  out-of-place 
hypocrisy  of  goodness  ;  and  above  all  I  wished  never  to 
see  the  face  again  of  that  insidious,  good-for-nothing,  old 
gray  impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of  sacrificing 
these  tender  victims.  We  read  of  pigs  whipped  to  death 
with  something  of  a  shock,  as  we  hear  of  any  other  obso- 
lete custom.  The  age  of  discipline  is  gone  by,  or  it 
would  be  curious  to  inquire  (in  a  philosophical  light 
merely)  what  effect  this  process  might  have  toward  in- 
tenerating  and  dulcifying  a  substance  naturally  so  mild 
and  dulcet  as  the  flesh  of  young  pigs.  It  looks  like  re- 
fining a  violet.  Yet  we  should  be  cautious,  while  we 
condemn  the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure  the  wisdom 
of  the  practice.     It  might  impart  a  gusto. 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by  the  young 
students,  when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's,  and  maintained  with 
much  learning  and  pleasantry  on  both  sides,  '*  Whether, 
supposing  that  the  fiavor  of  a  pig  who  obtained  his  death 
by  whipping  {per  flaggellationem  extremam)  superadded 
a  pleasure  upon  the  palate  of  a  man  more  intense  than 
any  possible  suffering  we  can  conceive  in  the  animal,  is 
man  justified  in  using  that  method  of  putting  the  animal 
to  death  ?  "    I  forget  the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly,  a  few 
bread-crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and  brains,  and  a 
dash  of  mild  sage.  But,  banish,  dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I  be- 
seech you,  the  whole  onion  tribe.  Barbecue  your  whole 
hogs  to  your  palate,  steep  them  in  shalots,  stuff  them  out 


202  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

with  plantations  of  the  rank  and  guilty  garlic ;  you  can- 
not poison  them,  or  make  them  stronger  than  they  are — 
but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling — a  flower. 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT  OF  THE    BEHAV- 
IOR OF  MARRIED   PEOPLE. 

As  a  single  man,  I  have  spent  a  good  deal  of  my  time 
in  noting  down  the  infirmities  of  Married  People,  to  con- 
sole myself  for  those  superior  pleasures  which  they  tell 
me  I  have  lost  by  remaining  as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and  their  wives 
ever  made  any  great  impression  upon  me,  or  had  much 
tendency  to  strengthen  me  in  those  anti-social  resolutions 
which  I  took  up  long  ago  upon  more  substantial  consid- 
erations. What  oftenest  offends  me  at  the  houses  of 
married  persons  where  I  visit,  is  an  error  of  quite  a  dif- 
ferent description — ^it  is  that  they  are  too  loving. 

Not  too  loving  neither:  that  does  not  explain  my 
meaning.  Besides,  why  should  that  offend  me?  The 
very  act  of  separating  themselves  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  to  have  the  fuller  enjoyment  of  each  other's  so- 
ciety, implies  that  they  prefer  one  another  to  all  the 
world. 

But  what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this  pref- 
erence so  undisguisedly,  they  perk  it  up  in  the  faces  of 
us  single  people  so  shamelessly,  you  cannot  be  in  their 
company  a  moment  without  being  made  to  feel,  by  some 
indirect  hint,  or  open  avowal,  that  you  are  not  the  ob- 
ject of  this  preference.  Now  there  are  some  things 
which  give  no  offense,  while  implied  or  taken  for  granted 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT.       203 

merely ;  but  expressed,  there  is  much  offense  in  them. 
If  a  man  were  to  accost  the  first  homely-featured  or 
plain-dressed  young  woman  of  his  acquaintance,  and  tell 
her  bluntly  that  she  was  not  handsome  or  rich  enough 
for  him,  and  he  could  not  marry  her,  he  would  deserve 
to  be  kicked  for  his  ill  manners ;  yet  no  less  is  implied  in 
the  fact  that,  having  access  and  opportunity  of  putting 
the  question  to  her,  he  has  never  yet  thought  fit  to  do  it. 
The  young  woman  understands  this  as  clearly  as  if  it 
were  put  into  words ;  but  no  reasonable  young  woman 
would  think  of  making  this  the  ground  of  a  quarrel. 
Just  as  little  right  have  a  married  couple  to  tell  me  by 
speeches,  and  looks  that  are  scarce  less  plain  than  speech- 
es, that  I  am  not  the  happy  man — ^the  lady's  choice.  It 
is  enough  that  I  know  I  am  not;  I  do  not  want  this 
perpetual  reminding. 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches  may  be 
made  sufficiently  mortifying ;  but  these  admit  of  a  pal- 
liative. The  knowledge  which  is  brought  out  to  insult 
me,  may  accidentally  improve  me ;  and  in  the  rich  man's 
houses  and  pictures — his  parks  and  gardens,  I  have  a  tem- 
porary usufruct  at  least.  But  the  display  of  married 
happiness  has  none  of  these  palliatives ;  it  is  throughout 
pure,  unrecompensed,  unqualified  insult. 

Marriage,  by  its  best  title,  is  a  monopoly,  and  not  of 
the  least  invidious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning  of  most  pos- 
sessors of  any  exclusive  privilege  to  keep  their  advan- 
tage as  much  out  of  sight  as  possible,  that  their  less 
favored  neighbors,  seeing  little  of  the  benefit,  may  the 
less  be  disposed  to  question  the  right.  But  these  mar- 
ried monopolists  thrust  the  most  obnoxious  part  of  their 
patent  into  our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that  entire 


204  THE   ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

complaconcy  and  satisfaction  which  beam  in  the  counte- 
nances of  a  new-married  couple — in  that  of  the  lady, 
particularly :  it  tells  you  that  her  lot  is  disposed  of  in 
this  world ;  that  you  can  have  no  hopes  of  her.  It  is 
true,  I  have  none ;  nor  wishes  either,  perhaps ;  but  this 
is  one  of  those  truths  which  ought,  as  I  said  before,  to 
be  taken  for  granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  which  those  people  give  themselves, 
founded  on  the  ignorance  of  us  unmarried  people,  would 
be  more  offensive  if  they  were  less  irrational.  We  will 
allow  them  to  understand  the  mysteries  belonging  to 
their  own  craft  better  than  we,  who  have  not  had  the 
happiness  to  be  made  free  of  the  company ;  but  their 
arrogance  is  not  content  within  these  limits.  If  a  single 
person  presume  to  offer  his  opinion  in  their  presence, 
though  upon  the  most  indifferent  subject,  he  is  immedi- 
ately silenced  as  an  incompetent  person.  Nay,  a  young 
married  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  who,  the  best  of  the 
jest  was,  had  not  changed  her  condition  above  a  fortnight 
before,  in  a  question  on  which  I  had  the  misfortune  to 
differ  from  her,  respecting  the  properest  mode  of  breed- 
ing oysters  for  the  London  market,  had  the  assurance  to 
ask,  with  a  sneer,  how  such  an  old  Bachelor  as  I  could 
pretend  to  know  anything  about  such  matters  I 

But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing  to  the 
airs  which  these  creatures  give  themselves  when  they 
come,  as  they  generally  do,  to  have  children.  When  I 
consider  how  little  of  a  rarity  children  are — that  every 
street  and  blind-alley  swarms  with  them — that  the  poor- 
est people  commonly  have  them  in  most  abundance — 
that  there  are  few  marriages  that  are  not  blessed  with  at 
least  one  of  these  bargains — how  often  they  turn  out  ill, 
and  defeat  the  fond  hopes  of  their  parents,  taking  to 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT.  205 

vicious  courses,  which  end  in  poverty,  disgrace,  the  gal- 
lows, etc. — I  cannot  for  my  life  tell  what  cause  for  pride 
there  can  possibly  be  in  having  them.  If  they  were 
young  phoenixes,  indeed,  that  were  born  but  one  in  a 
year,  there  might  be  a  pretext.  But  when  they  are  so 
common — 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  which  they  as- 
sume with  their  husbands  on  these  occasions.  Let  them 
look  to  that.  But  why  we^  who  are  not  their  natural- 
born  subjects,  should  be  expected  to  bring  our  spices, 
myrrh,  and  incense — our  tribute  and  homage  of  admira- 
tion— I  do  not  see. 

"Like  as  the  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant  even  so 
are  the  young  children;  "  so  says  the  excellent  office  in 
our  Prayer-book  appointed  for  the  churching  of  women. 
*'  Happy  is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them ;  " 
so  say  I ;  but  then  don't  let  him  discharge  his  quiver 
upon  us  that  are  weaponless — let  them  be  arrows,  but 
not  to  gall  and  stick  us.  I  have  generally  observed  that 
these  arrows  are  double-headed ;  they  have  two  forks,  to 
be  sure  to  hit  with  one  or  the  other.  As,  for  instance, 
where  you  come  into  a  house  which  is  full  of  children, 
if  you  happen  to  take  no  notice  of  them  (you  are  think- 
ing of  something  else,  perhaps,  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to 
their  innocent  caresses),  you  are  set  down  as  untractable, 
morose,  a  hater  of  children.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you 
find  them  more  than  usually  engaging — if  you  are  taken 
with  their  pretty  manners,  and  set  about  in  earnest  to 
romp  and  play  with  them,  some  pretext  or  other  is  sure 
to  be  found  for  sending  them  out  of  the  room :  they  are 
too  noisy  or  boisterous,  or  Mr. does  not  like  chil- 
dren. With  one  or  other  of  these  forks  the  arrow  is 
sure  to  hit  you. 


206  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense  with  toy- 
ing with  their  brats,  if  it  gives  them  any  pain ;  but  I 
think  it  unreasonable  to  be  called  upon  to  lo'ce  them, 
where  I  see  no  occasion — to  love  a  whole  family,  per- 
haps, eight,  nine,  or  ten,  indiscriminately — to  love  all  the 
pretty  dears,  because  children  are  so  engaging ! 

I  know  there  is  a  proverb,  *'  Love  me,  love  my  dog ;  " 
that  is  not  always  so  very  practicable,  particularly  if  the 
dog  be  set  upon  you  to  tease  you  or  snap  at  you  in  sport. 
But  a  dog,  or  a  lesser  thing — any  inanimate  substance,  as 
a  keepsake,  a  watch,  or  a  ring,  a  tree,  or  the  place  wbere 
we  last  parted  when  my  friend  went  away  upon  a  long 
absence,  I  can  make  shift  to  love,  because  I  love  him, 
and  anything  that  reminds  me  of  him ;  provided  it  be  in 
its  nature  indifferent,  and  apt  to  receive  whatever  hue 
fancy  can  give  it.  But  children  have  a  real  character, 
and  an  essential  being  of  themselves ;  they  are  amiable 
or  unamiable  per  se;  I  must  love  or  hate  them  as  I  see 
cause  for  either  in  their  qualities.  A  child's  nature  is  too 
serious  a  thing  to  admit  of  its  being  regarded  as  a  mere 
appendage  to  another  being,  and  to  be  loved  or  hated 
accordingly ;  they  stand  with  me  upon  their  own  stock, 
as  much  as  men  and  women  do.  Oh !  but  you  will  say, 
sure  it  is  an  attractive  age — there  is  something  in  the 
tender  age  of  infancy  that  of  itself  charms  us !  That  is 
the  very  reason  why  I  am  more  nice  about  them.  I 
know  that  a  sweet  child  is  the  sweetest  thing  in  Nature, 
not  even  excepting  the  delicate  creatures  which  bear 
them ;  but  the  prettier  the  kind  of  thing  is,  the  more 
desirable  it  is  that  it  should  be  pretty  of  its  kind.  One 
daisy  differs  not  much  from  another  in  glory ;  but  a  vio- 
let should  look  and  smell  the  daintiest. — I  was  always 
rather  squeamish  in  my  women  and  children. 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT.       207 

But  this  is  not  the  worst :  one  must  be  admitted  into 
their  familiarity  at  least,  before  they  can  complain  of 
inattention.  It  implies  visits,  and  some  kind  of  inter- 
course. But  if  the  husband  be  a  man  with  whom  you 
have  lived  on  a  friendly  footing  before  marriage — if  you 
did  not  come  in  on  the  wife's  side — if  you  did  not  sneak 
into  the  house  in  her  train,  but  were  an  old  friend  in 
fast  habits  of  intimacy  before  their  courtship  was  so 
much  as  thought  on — look  about  you — your  tenure  is 
precarious — before  a  twelvemonth  shall  roll  over  your 
head,  you  shall  find  your  old  friend  gradually  grow  cool 
and  altered  toward  you,  and  at  last  seek  opportunities  of 
breaking  with  you.  I  have  scarce  a  married  friend  of 
my  acquaintance,  upon  whose  firm  faith  I  can  rely, 
whose  friendship  did  not  commence  after  the  'period  of 
his  marriage.  With  some  limitations,  they  can  endure 
that ;  but  that  the  good  man  should  have  dared  to  enter 
into  a  solemn  league  of  friendship  in  which  they  were 
not  consulted,  though  it  happened  before  they  knew 
him — before  they  that  are  now  man  and  wife  ever  met — 
this  is  intolerable  to  them.  Every  long  friendship,  every 
old  authentic  intimacy,  must  be  brought  into  their  office 
to  be  new  stamped  with  their  currency,  as  a  sovereign 
prince  calls  in  the  good  old  money  that  was  coined  in 
some  reign  before  he  was  born  or  thought  of,  to  be  new 
marked  and  minted  with  the  stamp  of  his  authority, 
before  he  will  let  it  pass  current  in  the  world.  You 
may  guess  what  luck  generally  befalls  such  a  rusty  piece 
of  metal  as  I  am  in  these  new  mintings. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  which  they  take  to  in- 
sult and  worm  you  out  of  their  husband's  confidence. 
Laughing  at  all  you  say  with  a  kind  of  wonder,  as  if  you 
were  a  queer  kind  of  fellow  that  said  good  things,  hut 


208  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

an  oddity^  is  one  of  the  ways — they  have  a  particular 
kind  of  stare  for  the  purpose — till  at  last  the  hushand, 
who  used  to  defer  to  your  judgment,  and  would  pass 
over  some  excrescences  of  understanding  and  manner 
for  the  sake  of  a  general  vein  of  ohservation  (not  quite 
vulgar)  which  he  perceived  in  you,  begins  to  suspect 
whether  you  are  not  altogether  a  humorist — a  fellow 
well  enough  to  have  consorted  with  in  his  bachelor  days, 
but  not  quite  so  proper  to  be  introduced  to  ladies.  This 
may  be  called  the  staring  way ;  and  is  that  which  has 
oftenest  been  put  in  practice  against  me. 

Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or  the  way  of 
irony ;  that  is,  where  they  find  you  an  object  of  especial 
regard  with  their  husband,  who  is  not  so  easily  to  be 
shaken  from  the  lasting  attachment  founded  on  esteem 
which  he  has  conceived  toward  you,  by  never-qualified 
exaggerations  to  cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do,  till  the 
good  man,  who  understands  well  enough  that  it  is  all 
done  in  compliment  to  him,  grows  weary  of  the  debt  of 
gratitude  which  is  due  to  so  much  candor,  and  by  relax- 
ing a  little  on  his  part,  and  taking  down  a  peg  or  two 
in  his  enthusiasm,  sinks  at  length  to  the  kindly  level  of 
moderate  esteem — that  *' decent  affection  and  compla- 
cent kindness  "  toward  you,  where  she  herself  can  join 
in  sympathy  with  him  without  much  stretch  and  vio- 
lence to  her  sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  accomplish 
so  desirable  a  purpose  are  infinite)  is,  with  a  kind  of 
innocent  simplicity,  continually  to  mistake  what  it  was 
which  first  made  their  husband  fond  of  you.  If  an  es- 
teem for  something  excellent  in  your  moral  character 
was  that  which  riveted  the  chain  which  she  is  to  break 
upon  any  imaginary  discovery  of  a  want  of  poignancy 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT.       209 

in  your  conversation,  she  will  cry,  "  I  thought,  my  dear, 

you  described  your  friend,  Mr. ,  as  a  great  wit  ? " 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  for  some  supposed  charm 
in  your  conversation  that  he  first  grew  to  like  you,  and 
was  content  for  this  to  overlook  some  trifling  irregular- 
ities in  your  moral  deportment,  upon  the  first  notice  of 
any  of  these  she  as  readily  exclaims,  "  This,  my  dear,  is 

your  good  Mr. !  "     One  good  lady  whom  I  took 

the  liberty  of  expostulating  with  for  not  showing  me 
quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought  due  to  her  husband's 
old  friend,  had  the  candor  to  confess  to  me  that  she  had 

often  heard  Mr. speak  of  me  before  marriage,  and 

that  she  had  conceived  a  great  desire  to  be  acquainted 
with  me,  but  that  the  sight  of  me  had  very  much  disap- 
pointed her  expectations ;  for  from  her  husband's  repre- 
sentations of  me,  she  had  formed  a  notion  that  she  was 
to  see  a  fine,  tall,  officer-like-looking  man  (I  use  her 
very  words),  the  very  reverse  of  which  proved  to  be  the 
truth.  This  was  candid ;  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to 
ask  her  in  return,  how  she  came  to  pitch  upon  a  stand- 
ard of  personal  accomplishments  for  her  husband's 
friends  which  differed  so  much  from  his  own :  for  my 
friend's  dimensions  as  near  as  possible  approximate  to 
mine ;  he  standing  five  feet  five  in  his  shoes,  in  which  I 
have  the  advantage  of  him  by  about  half  an  inch ;  and 
he  no  more  than  myself  exhibiting  any  indications  of  a 
martial  character  in  his  air  or  countenance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  which  I  have 
encountered  in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit  at  their 
houses.  To  enumerate  them  all  would  be  a  vain  endeav- 
or ;  I  shall  therefore  just  glance  at  the  very  common 
impropriety  of  which  married  ladies  are  guilty — of 
treating  us  as  if  we  were  their  husbands,  and  vice  versa, 

14 


210  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

I  mean,  when  they  use  us  with  familiarity,  and  their 
husbands  with  ceremony.  Testacea^  for  instance,  kept 
me  the  other  night  two  or  three  hours  beyond  my 
usual  time  of  supping,  while  she  was  fretting  be- 
cause Mr.   did  not  come    home  till  the  oysters 

were  all  spoiled,  rather  than  she  would  be  guilty  of  the 
impoliteness  of  touching  one  in  his  absence.  This  was 
reversing  the  point  of  good  manners ;  for  ceremony  is 
an  invention  to  take  off  the  uneasy  feeling  which  we  de- 
rive from  knowing  ourselves  to  be  less  the  object  of  love 
and  esteem  with  a  fellow-creature  than  some  other  per- 
son is.  It  endeavors  to  make  up,  by  superior  attentions 
in  little  points,  for  that  invidious  preference  which  it  is 
forced  to  deny  in  the  greater.  Had  Testacea  kept  the 
oysters  back  for  me,  and  withstood  her  husband's  im- 
portunities to  go  to  supper,  she  would  have  acted  accord- 
ing to  the  strict  rules  of  propriety.  I  know  no  cere- 
mony that  ladies  are  bound  to  observe  to  their  husbands, 
beyond  the  point  of  a  modest  behavior  and  decorum ; 
therefore  I  must  protest  against  the  vicarious  gluttony 
of  Gerasia^  who  at  her  own  table  sent  away  a  dish  of 
Morellas,  which  I  was  applying  to  with  great  good-will, 
to  her  husband  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  and  recom- 
mended a  plate  of  less  extraordinary  gooseberries  to  my 
unwedded  palate  in  their  stead.  ITeither  can  I  excuse 
the  wanton  affront  of — 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married  ac- 
quaintance by  Koman  denominations.  Let  them  amend 
and  change  their  manners,  or  I  promise  to  record  the 
full-length  English  of  their  names,  to  the  terror  of  all 
such  desperate  offenders  in  future. 


ON  SOME   OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.  211 


OlST  SOME  OF  THE   OLD  ACTORS. 

The  casual  sight  of  an  old  play-bill,  which  I  picked 
up  the  other  day — I  know  not  by  what  chance  it  was 
preserved  so  long — tempts  me  to  call  to  mind  a  few  of 
the  players  who  make  the  principal  figure  in  it.  It 
presents  the  cast  of  parts  in  the  Twelfth  Night,  at  the 
old  Drury  Lane  Theatre  two-and-thirty  years  ago.  There 
is  something  very  touching  in  these  old  remembrances. 
They  make  us  think  how  we  once  used  to  read  a  play- 
bill— not,  as  now,  peradventure,  singling  out  a  favorite 
performer,  and  casting  a  negligent  eye  over  the  rest ; 
but  spelling  out  every  name,  down  to  the  very  mutes 
and  servants  of  the  scene — when  it  was  a  matter  of  no 
small  moment  to  us  whether  Whitfield  or  Packer  took 
the  part  of  Fabian ;  when  Benson,  and  Burton,  and 
Phillimore — names  of  small  account — had  an  importance 
beyond  what  we  can  be  content  to  attribute  now  to  the 
time's  best  actors.  *'  Orsino,  by  Mr.  Barrymore." — 
What  a  full  Shakespearean  sound  it  carries !  how  fresh 
to  memory  arise  the  image  and  the  manner  of  the  gentle 
actor ! 

Those  who  have  only  seen  Mrs.  Jordan  within  the 
last  ten  or  fifteen  years  can  have  no  adequate  notion  of 
her  performances  of  such  parts  as  Ophelia ;  Helena,  in 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well ;  and  Viola  in  this  play.  Her 
voice  had  latterly  acquired  a  coarseness  which  suited 
well  enough  with  her  Nells  and  Hoydens,  but  in  those 
days  it  sank,  with  her  steady,  melting  eye,  into  the 
heart.  Her  joyous  parts — in  which  her  memory  now 
chiefly  lives — in  her  youth  were  outdone  by  her  plaintive 
ones.    There  is  no  giving  an  account  how  she  delivered 


212  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

the  disguised  story  of  her  love  for  Orsino.  It  was  uo 
set  speech,  that  she  had  foreseen,  so  as  to  weave  it  into 
an  harmonious  period,  line  necessarily  following  line,  to 
make  up  the  music — yet  I  have  heard  it  so  spoken,  or 
rather  read^  not  without  its  grace  and  heauty  —  but, 
when  she  had  declared  her  sister's  history  to  be  a 
"blank,"  and  that  she  "  never  told  her  love,"  there  was 
a  pause,  as  if  the  story  had  ended — and  then  the  image 
of  the  "worm  in  the  bud"  came  up  as  a  new  sugges- 
tion— and  the  heightened  image  of  "  Patience  "  still  fol- 
lowed after  that,  as  by  some  growing  (and  not  mechani- 
cal) process,  thought  springing  up  after  thought,  I  would 
almost  say,  as  they  were  watered  by  her  tears.  So  in 
those  fine  lines — 

"  Write  loyal  cantos  of  contemii^d  love — 
Hollow  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills  " — 

there  was  no  preparation  made  in  the  foregoing  image 
for  that  which  was  to  follow.  She  used  no  rhetoric  in 
her  passion ;  or  it  was  iN'ature's  own  rhetoric,  most 
legitimate  then,  when  it  seemed  altogether  without  rule 
or  law.  Mrs.  Powel  (now  Mrs.  Kenard),  then  in  the 
pride  of  her  beauty,  made  an  admirable  Olivia.  She 
was  particularly  excellent  in  her  unbending  scenes  in 
conversation  with  the  clown.  I  have  seen  some  Olivias 
— and  those  very  sensible  actresses  too — who  in  these 
interlocutions  have  seemed  to  set  their  wits  at  the  jester, 
and  to  vie  conceits  with  him  in  downright  emulation. 
But  she  used  him  for  her  sport,  like  what  he  was,  to  tri- 
fle a  leisure  sentence  or  two  with,  and  then  to  be  dis- 
missed, and  she  to  be  the  great  lady  still.  She  touched 
the  imperious,  fantastic  humor  of  the  charactei  with 
nicety.    Her  fine,  spacious  person  filled  the  scene. 


ON   SOME   OF  THE   OLD  ACTORS.  213 

The  part  of  Malvolio  has,  in  my  judgment,  been  so 
often  misunderstood,  and  the  general  merits  of  the  actor 
who  then  played  it  so  unduly  appreciated,  that  I  shall 
hope  for  pardon  if  I  am  a  little  prolix  upon  these  points. 

Of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  my  time — a  mel- 
ancholy phrase  if  taken  aright,  reader  —  Bensley  had 
most  of  the  swell  of  soul,  was  greatest  in  the  delivery  of 
heroic  conceptions,  the  emotions  consequent  upon  the 
presentment  of  a  great  idea  to  the  fancy.  He  had  the 
true  poetical  enthusiasm — the  rarest  faculty  among  play- 
ers. None  that  I  remember  possessed  even  a  portion  of 
that  fine  madness  which  he  threw  out  in  Hotspur's  fa- 
mous rant  about  glory,  or  the  transports  of  the  Venetian 
incendiary  at  the  vision  of  the  fired  city.  His  voice 
had  the  dissonance,  and  at  times  the  inspiriting  effect, 
of  the  trumpet.  His  gait  was  uncouth  and  stiff,  but 
no  way  embarrassed  by  affectation ;  and  the  thor- 
ough-bred gentleman  was  uppermost  in  every  move- 
ment. He  seized  the  moment  of  passion  with  greatest 
truth;  like  a  faithful  clock,  never  striking  before  the 
time ;  never  anticipating  or  leading  you  to  anticipate. 
He  was  totally  destitute  of  trick  and  artifice.  Ho 
seemed  come  upon  the  stage  to  do  the  poet's  message 
simply,  and  he  did  it  with  as  genuine  fidelity  as  the  nun- 
cios in  Homer  deliver  the  errands  of  the  gods.  He  let 
the  passion  or  the  sentiment  do  its  own  work  without 
prop  or  bolstering.  He  would  have  scorned  to  mounte- 
bank it ;  and  betrayed  none  of  that  cleverness  which  is 
the  bane  of  serious  acting.  For  this  reason,  his  lago 
was  the  only  endurable  one  which  I  remember  to  have 
seen.  No  spectator  from  his  action  could  divine  more 
of  his  artifice  than  Othello  was  supposed  to  do.  His 
confessions  in  soliloquy  alone  put  you  in  possession  of 


214  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

the  mystery.  There  were  no  by-intimations  to  make 
the  audience  fancy  their  own  discernment  so  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  Moor — who  commonly  stands 
like  a  great  helpless  mark  set  up  for  mine  ancient,  and  a 
quantity  of  barren  spectators,  to  shoot  their  bolts  at. 
The  lago  of  Bensley  did  not  go  to  work  so  grossly. 
There  was  a  triumphant  tone  about  the  character,  nat- 
ural to  a  general  consciousness  of  power ;  but  none  of 
that  petty  vanity  which  chuckles  and  cannot  contain  it- 
self upon  any  little  successful  stroke  of  its  knavery — as 
is  common  with  your  small  villains  and  green  probatiou- 
ers  in  mischief.  It  did  not  clap  or  crow  before  its  time. 
It  was  not  a  man  setting  his  wits  at  a  child,  and  wink- 
ing all  the  while  at  other  children  who  are  mightily 
pleased  at  being  let  into  the  secret ;  but  a  consummate 
villain  entrapping  a  noble  nature  into  toils,  against  which 
no  discernment  was  available,  where  the  manner  was  as 
fathomless  as  the  purpose  seemed  dark,  and  without  mo- 
tive. The  part  of  Malvolio,  in  the  Twelfth  Night,  was 
performed  by  Bensley,  with  a  richness  and  a  dignity, 
of  which  (to  judge  from  some  recent  castings  of  that 
character)  the  very  tradition  must  be  worn  out  from  the 
stage.  No  manager  in  those  days  would  have  dreamed 
of  giving  it  to  Mr.  Baddeley,  or  Mr.  Parsons :  when 
Bensley  was  occasionally  absent  from  the  theatre,  John 
Kemble  thought  it  no  derogation  to  succeed  to  the  part. 
Malvolio  is  not  essentially  ludicrous.  He  becomes  comic 
but  by  accident.  He  is  cold,  austere,  repelling ;  but  dig- 
nified, consistent,  and,  for  what  appears,  rather  of  an 
overstretched  morality.  Maria  describes  him  as  a  sort  of 
Puritan ;  and  he  might  have  worn  his  gold  chain  with 
honor  in  one  of  our  old  Kound-Head  families,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  a  Lambert  or  a  Lady  Fairfax.    But  his  morality 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.     215 

and  his  manners  are  misplaced  in  Illyria.  He  is  op- 
posed to  the  proper  levities  of  the  piece,  and  falls  in  tho 
unequal  conquest.  Still  his  pride,  or  his  gravity  (call  it 
which  you  will),  is  inherent,  and  native  to  the  man,  not 
mock  or  affected,  which  latter  only  are  the  fit  objects  to 
excite  laughter.  His  quality  is  at  the  best  unlovely,  but 
neither  buffoon  nor  contemptible.  His  bearing  is  lofty, 
a  little  above  his  station,  but  probably  not  much  above 
his  deserts.  We  see  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have 
been  brave,  honorable,  accomplished.  His  careless  com- 
mittal of  the  ring  to  the  ground  (which  he  was  com- 
missioned to  restore  to  Oesario),  bespeaks  a  generosity  of 
birth  and  feeling.  His  dialect  on  all  occasions  is  that  of 
a  gentleman,  and  a  man  of  education.  We  must  not 
confound  him  with  the  eternal  old,  low  steward  of  com- 
edy. He  is  master  of  the  household  to  a  great  prin- 
cess ;  a  dignity  probably  conferred  upon  him  for  other 
respects  than  age  or  length  of  service.  Olivia,  at  the 
first  indication  of  his  supposed  madness,  declares  that 
she  "  would  not  have  him  miscarry  for  half  of  her  dow- 
ry." Does  this  look  as  if  the  character  was  meant  to 
appear  little  or  insignificant?  Once,  indeed,  she  ac- 
cuses him  to  his  face — of  what? — of  being  "  sick  of  self- 
love  " — but  with  a  gentleness  and  considerateness  which 
could  not  have' been,  if  she  had  not  thought  that  this 
particular  infirmity  shaded  some  virtues.  His  rebuke  to 
the  knight  and  his  sottish  revelers  is  sensible  and  spir- 
ited ;  and  when  we  take  into  consideration  the  unpro- 
tected condition  of  his  mistress,  and  the  strict  regard 
with  which  her  state  of  real  or  dissembled  mourning 
would  draw  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  her  house-af- 
fairs, Malvolio  might  feel  the  honor  of  the  family  in  some 
sort  in  his  keeping ;  as  it  appears  not  that  Olivia  had 


216  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA, 

any  more  brothers,  or  kinsmen,  to  look  to  it — for  Sir 
Toby  had  dropped  all  such  nice  respects  at  the  buttery- 
hatch.  That  Malvolio  was  meant  to  be  represented  as 
possessing  estimable  qualities,  the  expression  of  the  duke, 
in  his  anxiety  to  have  him  reconciled,  almost  infers: 
"  Pursue  him,  and  entreat  him  to  a  peace."  Even  in  his 
abused  state  of  chains  and  darkness,  a  sort  of  greatness 
seems  never  to  desert  him.  He  argues  highly  and  well 
with  the  supposed  Sir  Topas,  and  philosophizes  gallantly 
upon  his  straw.*  There  must  have  been  some  shadow 
of  worth  about  the  man ;  he  must  have  been  something 
more  than  a  mere  vapor — a  thing  of  straw,  or  Jack  in 
oflBce — ^before  Fabian  and  Maria  could  have  ventured 
sending  him  upon  a  courting-errand  to  Olivia.  There 
was  some  consonancy  (as  he  would  say)  in  the  under- 
taking, or  the  jest  would  have  been  too  bold  even  for 
that  house  of  misrule. 

Bensley,  accordingly,  threw  over  the  part  an  air  of 
Spanish  loftiness.  He  looked,  spake,  and  moved,  like  an 
old  Oastilian.  He  was  starch,  spruce,  opinionated,  but 
his  superstructure  of  pride  seemed  bottomed  upon  a 
sense  of  worth.  There  was  something  in  it  beyond  the 
coxcomb.  It  was  big  and  swelling,  but  you  could  not  be 
sure  that  it  was  hollow.  You  might  wish  to  see  it  taken 
down,  but  you  felt  that  it  was  upon  an  elevation.  He 
was  magnificent  from  the  outset ;  but  when  the  decent 

*  Clown.  "What  is  the  opinion  of  Pythagoras  concerning  wild 
fowl? 

Mai.  That  the  soul  of  our  grandam  might  haply  inhabit  a 
bird. 

Clorvv.  What  thinkest  thou  of  his  opinion  ? 

Mai.  I  think  nobly  of  the  soul,  and  no  way  approve  of  hie 
opinioii. 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.     217 

sobrieties  of  the  character  began  to  give  way,  and  the 
poison  of  self-love,  in  his  conceit  of  the  countess's  affec- 
tion, gradually  to  work,  you  would  have  thought  that 
the  hero  of  La  Mancha  in  person  stood  before  you. 
How  he  went  smiling  to  himself !  with  what  ineffable 
carelessness  would  he  twirl  his  gold  chain!  what  a 
dream  it  was !  you  were  infected  with  the  illusion,  and 
did  not  wish  that  it  should  be  removed!  you  had  no  room 
for  laughter !  if  an  unseasonable  reflection  of  morality 
obtruded  itself,  it  was  a  deep  sense  of  the  pitiable  in- 
firmity of  man's  nature,  that  can  lay  him  open  to  such 
frenzies — ^but  in  truth  you  rather  admired  than  pitied 
the  lunacy  while  it  lasted  —  you  felt  that  an  hour  of 
such  mistake  was  worth  an  age  with  the  eyes  open. 
Who  would  not  wish  to  live  but  for  a  day  in  the  con- 
ceit of  such  a  lady's  love  as  Olivia?  Why,  the  Duke 
would  have  given  his  principality  but  for  a  quarter  of  a 
minute,  sleeping  or  waking,  to  have  been  so  deluded. 
The  man  seemed  to  tread  upon  air,  to  taste  manna,  to 
walk  with  his  head  in  the  clouds,  to  mate  Hyperion. 
Oh !  shake  not  the  castles  of  his  pride — endure  yet  for  a 
season,  bright  moments  of  confidence — '*  stand  still,  ye 
watches  of  the  element,"  that  Malvolio  may  be  still  in 
fancy  fair  Olivia's  lord ! — ^but  fate  and  retribution  say  no 
— I  hear  the  mischievous  titter  of  Maria — the  witty  taunts 
of  Sir  Toby — the  still  more  insupportable  triumph  of  the 
foolish  knight — the  counterfeit  Sir  Topas  is  unmasked — 
and  "  thus  the  whirligig  of  time,"  as  the  true  clown  hath 
it,  "  brings  in  his  revenges."  I  confess  that  I  never  saw 
the  catastrophe  of  this  character,  while  Bensley  played 
it,  without  a  kind  of  tragic  interest.  There  was  good 
foolery  too.  Few  now  remember  Dodd.  What  an  Ague- 
cheek  the  stage  lost  in  him!     Lovegrove,  who  came 


218  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

nearest  to  the  old  actors,  revived  the  character  some  few 
seasons  ago,  and  made  it  sufficiently  grotesque ;  hut  Dodd 
was  ity  as  it  came  out  of  Nature's  hands.  It  might  he 
said  to  remain  in  puris  naturalibus.  In  expressing  slow- 
ness of  apprehension,  this  actor  surpassed  all  others. 
You  could  see  the  first  dawn  of  an  idea  stealing  slowly 
over  his  countenance,  climbing  up  by  little  and  little, 
with  a  painful  process,  till  it  cleared  up  at  last  to  the 
fullness  of  a  twilight  conception — its  highest  meridian. 
He  seemed  to  keep  back  his  intellect,  as  some  have  had 
the  power  to  retard  their  pulsation.  The  balloon  takes 
less  time  in  filling,  than  it  took  to  cover  the  expansion 
of  his  broad,  moony  face  over  all  its  quarters  with  ex- 
pression. A  glimmer  of  understanding  would  appear  in 
a  corner  of  his  eye,  and  for  lack  of  fuel  go  out  again.  A 
part  of  his  forehead  would  catch  a  little  intelligence,  and 
be  a  long  time  in  communicating  it  to  the  remainder. 

I  am  ill  at  dates,  but  I  think  it  is  now  better  than 
five-and-twenty  years  ago,  that  walking  in  the  gardens 
of  Gray's  Inn — they  were  then  far  finer  than  they  are 
now  —  the  accursed  Yerulam  Buildings  had  not  en- 
croached upon  all  the  east  side  of  them,  cutting  out  deli- 
cate green  crankles,  and  shouldering  away  one  of  two  of 
the  stately  alcoves  of  the  terrace — ^the  survivor  stands 
gaping  and  relationless  as  if  it  remembered  its  brother — 
they  are  still  the  best  gardens  of  any  of  the  Inns  of  Court, 
my  beloved  Temple  not  forgotten — have  the  gravest 
character,  their  aspect  being  altogether  reverend  and 
law-breathing — Bacon  has  left  the  impress  of  his  foot 
upon  their  gravel-walks — taking  my  afternoon  solace 
on  a  summer  day  upon  the  afoi*esaid  terrace,  a  comely, 
sad  personage  came  toward  me,  whom,  from  his  grave 
air  and  deportment,  I  judged  to  be  one  of  the  old  Bench- 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.     219 

ers  of  the  Inn.  He  had  a  serious,  thoughtful  forehead, 
and  seemed  to  be  in  meditations  of  mortality.  As  I 
have  an  instinctive  awe  of  old  Benchers,  I  was  passing 
him  with  that  sort  of  subindicative  token  of  respect 
which  one  is  apt  to  demonstrate  toward  a  venerable 
stranger,  and  which  rather  denotes  an  inclination  to 
greet  him,  than  any  positive  motion  of  the  body  to  that 
effect — a  species  of  humility  and  will- worship  which  I 
observe,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  rather  puzzles  than  pleases 
the  person  it  is  offered  to — when  the  face  turning  full 
upon  me,  strangely  identified  itself  with  that  of  Dodd. 
Upon  close  inspection  I  was  not  mistaken.  But  could 
this  sad,  thoughtful  countenance  be  the  same  vacant  face 
of  folly  which  I  had  hailed  so  often  under  circumstances 
of  gayety ;  which  I  had  never  seen  without  a  smile,  or 
recognized  but  as  the  usher  of  mirth ;  that  looked  out  so 
formally  flat  in  Foppington,  so  frothily  pert  in  Tattle,  so 
impotently  busy  in  Backbite ;  so  blankly  divested  of  all 
meaning,  or  resolutely  expressive  of  none,  in  Acres,  in 
Fribble,  and  a  thousand  agreeable  impertinences?  Was 
this  the  face  — full  of  thought  and  carefulness — that  had 
so  often  divested  itself  at  will  of  every  trace  of  either  to 
give  me  diversion,  to  clear  my  cloudy  face  for  two  or 
three  hours  at  least  of  its  furrows  ?  Was  this  the  face — 
manly,  sober,  intelligent — which  I  had  so  often  despised, 
made  mocks  at,  made  merry  with?  The  remembrance 
of  the  freedoms  which  I  had  taken  with  it  came  upon  me 
with  a  reproach  of  insult.  I  could  have  asked  it  pardon. 
I  thought  it  looked  upon  me  with  a  sense  of  injury. 
There  is  something  strange  as  well  as  sad  in  seeing  actors 
— your  pleasant  fellows  particularly— subjected  to  and 
suffering  the  common  lot ;  their  fortunes,  their  casual- 
ties, their  deaths,  seem  to  belong  to  the  scene,  their  ac- 


220  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

tions  to  be  amenable  to  poetic  justice  only.  "We  can 
hardly  connect  them  with  more  awful  responsibilities. 
The  death  of  this  fine  actor  took  place  shortly  after  this 
meeting.  He  had  quitted  the  stage  some  months;  and, 
as  I  learned  afterward,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  resorting 
daily  to  these  gardens  almost  to  the  day  of  his  decease. 
In  these  serious  walks  probably  he  was  divesting  himself 
of  many  scenic  and  some  real  vanities — weaning  himself 
from  the  frivolities  of  the  lesser  and  the  greater  theatre 
— doing  gentle  penance  for  a  life  of  no  very  reprehen- 
sible fooleries — taking  off  by  degrees  the  buffoon  mask, 
which  he  might  feel  he  had  worn  too  long — and  rehears- 
ing for  a  more  solemn  cast  of  part.  Dying,  he  *'put  on 
the  weeds  of  Dominic."  * 

If  few  can  remember  Dodd,  many  yet  living  will  not 
easily  forget  the  pleasant  creature  who  in  those  days 
enacted  the  part  of  the  Clown  to  Dodd's  Sir  Andrew. — 
Richard,  or  rather  Dicky  Suett — for  so  in  his  lifetime  he 
delighted  to  be  called,  and  time  hath  ratified  the  appel- 
lation— lies  buried  on  the  north  side  of  the  cemetery  of 
Holy  Paul,  to  whose  service  his  nonage  and  tender  years 
were  dedicated.  There  are  who  do  yet  remember  him 
at  that  period— his  pipe  clear  and  harmonious.   He  would 

*  Dodd  was  a  man  of  reading,  and  left  at  his  death  a  choice 
collection  of  old  English  literature.  I  should  judge  him  to  have 
been  a  man  of  wit.  I  know  one  instance  of  an  impromptu  which 
no  length  of  study  could  have  bettered.  My  merry  friend,  Jem 
White,  had  seen  him  one  evening  in  Aguecheek,  and  recognizing 
Dodd  the  next  day  in  Fleet  Street,  was  irresistibly  impelled  to 
take  off  his  hat  and  salute  him  as  the  identical  Knight  of  the  pre- 
ceding evening  with  a  *'  Save  you,  Sir  Andrew. ^^  Dodd,  not  at 
all  disconcerted  at  this  unusual  address  from  a  stranger,  with  a 
courteous  half-rebuking  wave  of  the  hand,  put  him  oflp  with  an 
"  Away,  FooV^ 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.     221 

often  speak  of  his  chorister  days,  when  he  was  "  cherub 
Dicky." 

What  clipped  his  wings,  or  made  it  expedient  that  he 
should  change  the  holy  for  the  profane  state ;  whether 
he  had  lost  his  good  voice  (his  best  recommendation  to 
that  office)  like  Sir  John,  with  "  hallooing  and  singing  of 
anthems ;  "  or  whether  he  was  adjudged  to  lack  some- 
thing, even  in  those  early  years,  of  the  gravity  indis- 
pensable to  an  occupation  which  professeth  to  "com- 
merce with  the  skies" — I  could  never  rightly  learn  ;  but 
we  find  him,  after  the  probation  of  a  twelvemonth  or  so, 
reverting  to  a  secular  condition,  and  become  one  of  us. 

I  think  he  was  not  altogether  of  that  timber  out  of 
which  cathedral-seats  and  sounding-boards  are  hewed. 
But  if  a  glad  heart — kind,  and  therefore  glad — ^be  any 
part  of  sanctity,  then  might  the  robe  of  Motley,  with 
which  he  invested  himself  with  so  much  humility  after 
his  deprivation,  and  which  he  wore  so  long  with  so 
much  blameless  satisfaction  to  himself  and  to  the  public, 
be  accepted  for  a  surplice — his  white  stole  and  albe. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  secularization  was  an  engage- 
ment upon  the  boards  of  Old  Drury,  at  which  theatre 
he  commenced,  as  I  have  been  told,  with  adopting  the 
manner  of  Parsons  in  old  men's  characters.  At  the  pe- 
riod in  which  most  of  us  knew  him,  he  was  no  more  an 
imitator  than  he  was  in  any  true  sense  himself  imi- 
table. 

He  was  the  Robin  Goodfellow  of  the  stage.  He  came 
in  to  trouble  all  things  with  a  welcome  perplexity,  him- 
self no  whit  troubled  for  the  matter.  He  was  known, 
like  Puck,  by  his  note — Ha!  Ha!  Ha!  —  sometimes 
deepening  to  Ho  !  Ho !  Ho  !  with  an  irresistible  acces- 
sion, derived,  perhaps,  remotely  from  his  ecclesiastical 


222  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

education,  foreign  to  his  prototype  of — 0  La!  Thou- 
sands of  hearts  yet  respond  to  the  chuckling  0  La!  of 
Dicky  Suett,  brought  back  to  their  remembrance  by  the 
faithful  transcript  of  his  friend  Mathews's  mimicry. 
The  "  force  of  nature  could  no  further  go."  He  drolled 
upon  the  stock  of  these  two  syllables  richer  than  the 
cuckoo. 

Care,  that  troubles  all  the  world,  was  forgotten  in 
his  composition.  Had  he  had  but  two  grains  (nay,  half 
a  grain)  of  it,  he  could  never  have  supported  himself 
upon  those  two  spider's  strings,  which  served  him  (in 
the  latter  part  of  his  unmixed  existence)  as  legs.  A 
doubt  or  a  scruple  must  have  made  him  totter,  a  sigh 
have  puffed  him  down ;  the  weight  of  a  frown  had  stag- 
gered him,  a  wrinkle  made  him  lose  his  balance.  But 
on  he  went,  scrambling  upon  those  airy  stilts  of  his, 
with  Robin  Goodfellow,  *'  thorough  brake,  thorough 
brier,"  reckless  of  a  scratched  face  or  a  torn  doublet. 

Shakespeare  foresaw  him  when  he  framed  his  fools 
and  jesters.  They  have  all  the  true  Suett  stamp,  a  loose 
and  shambling  gait,  a  slippery  tongue,  this  last  the  ready 
midwife  to  a  without-pain-delivered  jest;  in  worlds  light 
as  air,  venting  truths  deep  as  the  centre ;  with  idlest 
rhymes  tagging  conceit  when  busiest,  singing  with  Lear 
in  the  tempest,  or  Sir  Toby  at  the  buttery-hatch. 

Jack  Bannister  and  he  had  the  fortune  to  be  more  of 
personal  favorites  with  the  town  than  any  actors  before 
or  after.  The  difference,  I  take  it,  was  this :  Jack  Was 
more  leloioed  for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  moral  pre- 
tensions. Dicky  was  more  lihed  for  his  sweet,  good- 
natured,  no  pretensions  at  all.  Your  whole  conscience 
stirred  with  Bannister's  performance  of  Walter  in  The 
Children  in  the  Wood ;  but  Dicky  seemed  like  a  thing, 


ON  SOME  OF  THE  OLD  ACTORS.    223 

as  Shakespeare  says  of  Love,  too  young  to  know  what 
conscience  is.  He  put  us  into  Vesta's  days.  Evil  fled 
before  him — not  as  from  Jack,  as  from  an  antagonist, 
but  because  it  could  not  touch  him,  any  more  than  a 
cannon-ball  a  fly.  He  was  delivered  from  the  burden 
of  that  death;  and,  when  death  came  himself,  not  in 
metaphor,  to  fetch  Dicky,  it  is  recorded  of  him  by 
Robert  Palmer,  who  kindly  watched  his  exit,  that  lie 
received  the  last  stroke,  neither  varying  his  accustomed 
tranquillity,  nor  tune,  with  the  simple  exclamation, 
worthy  to  have  been  recorded  in  his  epitaph — 0  La!  0 
La!  Bobby  ! 

The  elder  Palmer  (of  stage-treading  celebrity)  com- 
monly played  Sir  Toby  in  those  days;  but  there  is  a 
solidity  of  wit  in  the  jests  of  that  half-Falstaff  which  he 
did  not  quite  fill  out.  Ho  was  as  much  too  showy  as 
Moody  (who  sometimes  took  the  part)  was  dry  and  sot- 
tish. In  sock  or  buskin  there  was  an  air  of  swaggering 
gentility  about  Jack  Palmer.  He  was  a  gentleman  with 
a  slight  infusion  of  tlie  footman.  His  brother  Bob  (of 
recenter  memory),  who  was  his  shadow  in  everything 
while  he  lived,  and  dwindled  into  less  than  a  shadow 
afterward — was  a  gentleman  with  a  little  stronger  infu- 
sion of  the  latter  ingredient ;  that  was  all.  It  is  amazing 
how  a  little  of  the  more  or  less  makes  a  difference  in 
these  things.  When  you  saw  Bobby  in  the  Duke's  Ser- 
vant,* you  said,  "  What  a  pity  such  a  pretty  fellow  was 
only  a  servant !  "  When  you  saw  Jack  figuring  in  Cap- 
tain Absolute,  you  thought  you  could  trace  his  promo- 
tion to  some  lady  of  quality  who  fancied  the  handsome 
fellow  in  his  top-knot,  and  had  bought  him  a  commission. 
Therefore  Jack  in  Dick  Amlet  was  insuperable. 

*  High  Life  Below  Stairs. 


224  THE   ESSAYS  OF   ELTA. 

Jack  had  two  voices,  both  plausible,  hypocritical, 
and  insinuating  ;  but  his  secondary  or  supplemental 
voice  still  more  decisively  histrionic  than  his  common 
one.  It  was  reserved  for  the  spectator ;  and  the  drama- 
tispersonce  were  supposed  to  know  nothing  at  aU  about 
it.  The  lies  of  Young  Wilding  and  the  sentiments  in 
Joseph  Surface  were  thus  marked  out  in  a  sort  of  italics 
to  the  audience.  This  secret  correspondence  with  the 
company  before  the  curtain  (which  is  the  bane  and  death 
of  tragedy)  has  an  extremely  happy  effect  in  some  kinds 
of  comedy,  in  the  more  highly  artificial  comedy  of  Oon- 
greve  or  of  Sheridan  especially,  where  the  absolute  sense 
of  reality  (so  indispensable  to  scenes  of  interest)  is  not 
required,  or  would  rather  interfere  to  diminish  your 
pleasure.  The  fact  is,  you  do  not  believe  in  such  char- 
acters as  Surface — the  villain  of  artificial  comedy — even 
while  you  read  or  see  them.  If  you  did,  they  would 
shock  and  not  divert  you.  When  Ben,  in  Love  for 
Love,  returns  from  sea,  the  following  exquisite  dialogue 
occurs,  at  his  first  meeting  with  his  father : 

Sir  Sampson.  Thou  hast  been  many  a  weary  league,  Ben, 
since  I  saw  thee. 

Ben.  Ey,  ey,  been !  Been  far  enough,  an'  that  be  all.  Well, 
father,  and  how  do  all  at  home  ?  how  does  brother  Dick,  and 
brother  Yal  ? 

Sir  Sampson.  Dick !  body  o'  me,  Dick  has  been  dead  these 
two  years.     I  writ  you  word  when  you  were  at  Leghorn. 

Ben.  Mess,  that's  true ;  Marry,  I  had  forgot.  Dick's  dead, 
as  you  say — well,  and  how  ? — I  have  a  many  questions  to  ask 
you. — 

Here  is  an  instance  of  insensibility  which  in  real  life 
would  be  revolting,  or  rather  in  real  life  could  not  have 


ON   SOME   OF   THE   OLD   ACTORS.  225 

coexisted  with  the  warm-hearted  temperament  of  the 
character.  But  when  you  read  it  in  the  spirit  with 
which  such  playful  selections  and  specious  combinations 
rather  than  strict  metapJirases  of  nature  should  be  taken, 
or  when  you  saw  Bannister  play  it,  it  neither  did,  nor 
does,  wound  the  moral  sense  at  all.  For  what  is  Ben — 
the  pleasant  sailor  which  Bannister  gives  us — but  a  piece 
of  satire — a  creation  of  Congreve's  fancy — a  dreamy 
combination  of  all  the  accidents  of  a  sailor's  character — 
his  contempt  of  money — his  credulity  to  women — with 
that  necessary  estrangement  from  home  which  it  is  just 
within  the  verge  of  credibility  to  suppose  might  produce 
such  an  hallucination  as  is  here  described  ?  We  never 
think  the  worse  of  Ben  for  it,  or  feel  it  as  a  stain  upon 
his  character.  But  when  an  actor  comes,  and  instead  of 
the  delightful  phantom — the  creature  dear  to  half-belief 
— which  Bannister  exhibited — displays  before  our  eyes 
a  downright  concretion  of  a  Wapping  sailor — a  jolly, 
warm-hearted  Jack  Tar — and  nothing  else — when  in- 
stead of  investing  it  with  a  delicious  confusedness  of  the 
head,  and  a  veering  undirected  goodness  of  purpose — ^he 
gives  to  it  a  downright  daylight  understanding,  and  a  full 
consciousness  of  its  actions ;  thrusting  forward  the  sensi- 
bilities of  the  character  with  a  pretense  as  if  it  stood 
upon  nothing  else,  and  was  to  be  judged  by  them  alone 
— we  feel  the  discord  of  the  thing;  the  scene  is  dis- 
turbed ;  a  real  man  has  got  in  among  the  dramatis  per- 
soncB,  and  puts  them  out.  We  want  the  sailor  turned 
out.  We  feel  that  his  true  place  is  not  behind  the  cur- 
tain, but  in  the  first  or  second  gallery. 


15 


226  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 


ON  THE  ARTIFICIAL    COMEDY  OF  THE  LAST 
CENTURY. 

The  artificial  Comedy,  or  Comedy  of  manners,  is 
quite  extinct  on  our  stage.  Congreve  and  Farquhar 
show  their  heads  once  in  seven  years  only,  to  be  ex- 
ploded and  put  down  instantly.  The  times  cannot  bear 
them.  Is  it  for  a  few  wild  speeches,  an  occasional  li- 
cense of  dialogue  ?  I  think  not  altogether.  The  busi- 
ness of  their  dramatic  characters  will  not  stand  the 
moral  test.  We  screw  everything  up  to  that.  Idle  gal- 
lantry in  a  fiction,  a  dream,  the  passing  pageant  of  an 
evening,  startles  us  in  the  same  way  as  the  alarming  in- 
dications of  profligacy  in  a  son  or  ward  in  real  life  should 
startle  the  parent  or  guardian.  We  have  no  such  middle 
emotions  as  dramatic  interests  left.  We  see  a  stage 
libertine  playing  his  loose  pranks  of  two  hours'  dura- 
tion, and  of  no  after-consequence,  with  the  severe  eyes 
which  inspect  real  vices  with  their  bearings  upon  two 
worlds.  We  are  spectators  to  a  plot  or  intrigue  (not 
reducible  in  life  to  the  point  of  strict  morality),  and  take 
it  all  for  truth.  We  substitute  a  real  for  a  dramatic  per- 
son, and  judge  him  accordingly.  We  try  him  in  our 
courts,  from  which  there  is  no  appeal  to  the  dramatis 
personcBy  his  peers.  We  have  been  spoiled  with — not 
sentimental  comedy — but  a  tyrant  far  more  pernicious  to 
our  pleasures  which  has  succeeded  to  it,  the  exclusive 
and  all-devouring  drama  of  common  life;  where  the 
moral  point  is  everything;  where,  instead  of  the  ficti- 
tious half-believed  personages  of  the  stage  (the  phantoms 
of  old  comedy),  we  recognize  ourselves,  our  brothers, 


ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  LAST  CENTURY.  227 

aunts,  kinsfolk,  allies,  patrons,  enemies — the  same  as  in 
life — with  an  interest  in  what  is  going  on  so  hearty  and 
substantial,  that  we  cannot  afford  our  moral  judgment, 
in  its  deepest  and  most  vital  results,  to  compromise  or 
slumber  for  a  moment.  What  is  there  transacting,  by  no 
modification  is  made  to  affect  us  in  any  other  manner 
than  the  same  events  or  characters  would  do  in  our 
relationships  of  life.  We  carry  our  fireside  concerns  to 
the  theatre  with  us.  We  do  not  go  thither,  like  our  an- 
cestors, to  escape  from  the  pressure  of  reality,  so  much 
as  to  confirm  our  experience  of  it ;  to  make  assurance 
double,  and  take  a  bond  of  fate.  We  must  live  our  toil- 
some lives  twice  over,  as  it  was  the  mournful  privilege  of 
Ulysses  to  descend  twice  to  the  shades.  All  that  neutral 
ground  of  character,  which  stood  between  vice  and  vir- 
tue ;  or  which  in  fact  was  indifferent  to  neither,  where 
neither  properly  was  called  in  question ;  that  happy 
breathing-place  from  the  burden  of  a  perpetual  moral 
questioning — the  sanctuary  and  quiet  Alsatia  of  hunted 
casuistry — is  broken  up  and  disfranchised,  as  injurious  to 
the  interests  of  society.  The  privileges  of  the  place  are 
taken  away  by  law.  We  dare  not  dally  with  images,  or 
names,  of  wrong.  We  bark  like  foolish  dogs  at  shadows. 
We  dread  infection  from  the  scenic  representation  of  dis- 
order, and  fear  a  painted  pustule.  In  our  anxiety  that 
our  morality  should  not  take  cold,  we  wrap  it  up  in  a 
great  blanket  surtout  of  precaution  against  the  breeze 
and  sunshine. 

I  confess  for  myself  that  (with  no  great  delinquencies 
to  answer  for)  I  am  glad  for  a  season  to  take  an  airing 
beyond  the  diocese  of  the  strict  conscience— not  to  live 
always  in  the  precincts  of  the  law-courts — but  now  and 
then,  for  a  dream-while  or  so,  to  imagine  a  world  with 


228  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

no  meddling  restrictions — to  get  into  recesses,  whither 
the  hunter  cannot  follow  me : 

— "  Secret  shades 
Of  woody  Ida*s  inmost  grove, 
While  yet  there  was  no  fear  of  Jove." 

I  come  back  to  my  cage  and  my  restraint  the  fresher  and 
more  healthy  for  it.  I  wear  my  shackles  more  content- 
edly for  having  respired  the  breath  of  an  imaginary  free- 
dom. I  do  not  know  how  it  is  with  others,  but  I  feel 
the  better  always  for  the  perusal  of  one  of  Congreve's — 
nay,  why  should  I  not  add  even  of  Wycherley's  come- 
dies. I  am  the  gayer  at  least  for  it ;  and  I  could  never 
connect  those  sports  of  a  witty  fancy  in  any  shape  with 
any  result  to  be  drawn  from  them  to  imitation  in  real 
life.  They  are  a  world  of  themselves  almost  as  much  as 
fairy-land.  Take  one  their  characters,  male  or  female 
(with  few  exceptions  they  are  alike),  and  place  it  in  a 
modern  play,  and  my  virtuous  indignation  shall  rise 
against  the  profligate  wretch  as  warmly  as  the  Catos  of 
the  pit  could  desire ;  because  in  a  modern  play  I  am  to 
judge  of  the  right  and  the  wrong.  The  standard  of 
police  is  the  measure  of  political  justice.  The  atmos- 
phere will  blight  it ;  it  cannot  live  here.  It  has  got  into 
a  moral  world,  where  it  has  no  business,  from  which  it 
must  needs  fall  headlong,  as  dizzy  and  incapable  of  mak- 
ing a  stand  as  a  Swedenborgian  bad  spirit  that  has  wan- 
dered unawares  into  the  sphere  of  one  of  his  Good  Men 
or  Angels.  But  in  its  own  world  do  we  feel  the  creat- 
ure is  so  very  bad  ?  The  Fainalls  and  the  Mirabells,  the 
Dorimants  and  the  Lady  Touchwoods,  in  their  own 
sphere,  do  not  offend  my  moral  sense ;  in  fact  they  do 


ARTIFICIAL   COMEDY   OF  LAST   CENTURY.   229 

not  appeal  to  it  at  all.  They  seem  engaged  in  their 
proper  element.  They  break  through  no  laws  or  con- 
scientious restraints.  They  know  of  none.  They  have 
got  out  of  Christendom  into  the  land — what  shall  I  call 
it  ? — of  cuckoldry — the  Utopia  of  gallantry,  where  pleas- 
ure is  duty,  and  the  manners  perfect  freedom.  It  is 
altogether  a  speculative  scene  of  things,  which  has  no 
reference  whatever  to  the  world  that  is.  Fo  good  per- 
son can  be  justly  offended  as  a  spectator,  because  no 
good  person  suffers  on  the  stage.  Judged  morally,  every 
character  in  these  plays — the  few  exceptions  only  are 
mistahes — is  alike  essentially  vain  and  worthless.  The 
great  art  of  Oongreve  is  especially  shown  in  this,  that 
he  has  entirely  excluded  from  his  scenes — some  little 
generosities  in  the  part  of  Angelica,  perhaps,  excepted 
— not  only  anything  like  a  faultless  character,  but  any 
pretensions  to  goodness  or  good  feelings  whatsoever. 
Whether  he  did  this  designedly  or  instinctively,  the  effect 
is  as  happy  as  the  design  (if  design)  was  bold.  I  used 
to  wonder  at  the  strange  power  which  his  Way  of  the 
World  in  particular  possesses  of  interesting  you  all  along 
in  the  pursuits  of  characters  for  whom  you  absolutely 
care  nothing — for  you  neither  hate  nor  love  his  person- 
ages— and  I  think  it  is  owing  to  this  very  indifference 
for  any  that  you  endure  the  whole.  He  has  spread  a 
privation  of  moral  light,  I  will  call  it,  rather  than  by 
the  ugly  name  of  palpable  darkness,  over  his  creations ; 
and  his  shadows  flit  before  you  without  distinction  or 
preference.  Had  he  introduced  a  good  character,  a  sin- 
gle gush  of  moral  feeling,  a  revulsion  of  the  judgment  to 
actual  life  and  actual  duties,  the  impertinent  Goshen 
would  have  only  lighted  to  the  discovery  of  deformities, 
which  now  are  none,  because  we  think  them  none. 


230  THE   ESSAYS   OF  ELIA. 

Translated  into  real  life,  the  characters  of  his,  and  his 
friend  Wycherley's  dramas,  are  profligates  and  strum- 
pets— the  business  of  their  brief  existence  the  undivided 
pursuit  of  lawless  gallantry.  No  other  spring  of  action 
or  possible  motive  of  conduct  is  recognized ;  principles 
which,  universally  acted  upon,  must  reduce  this  frame 
of  things  to  a  chaos.  But  we  do  them  wrong  in  so 
translating  them.  No  such  effects  are  produced  in  their 
world.  When  we  are  among  them  we  are  among  a 
chaotic  people.  We  are  not  to  judge  them  by  our  usages. 
No  reverend  institutions  are  insulted  by  their  proceed- 
ings, for  they  have  none  among  them.  No  peace  of 
families  is  violated,  for  no  family  ties  exist  among  them. 
No  purity  of  the  marriage-bed  is  stained,  for  none  is 
supposed  to  have  a  being.  No  deep  affections  are  dis- 
quieted, no  holy  wedlock  bands  are  snapped  asunder,  for 
affection's  depth  and  wedded  faith  are  not  of  the  growth 
of  that  soil.  There  is  neither  right  nor  wrong,  grati- 
tude or  its  opposite,  claim  or  duty,  paternity  or  sonship. 
Of  what  consequence  is  it  to  Virtue,  or  how  is  she  at 
all  concerned  about  it,  whether  Sir  Simon  or  Dapperwit 
steal  away  Miss  Martha,  or  who  is  the  father  of  Lord 
Froth's  or  Sir  Paul  Pliant's  children. 

The  whole  is  a  passing  pageant,  where  we  should  sit  as 
unconcerned  at  the  issues,  for  life  or  death,  as  at  a  battle 
of  the  frogs  and  mice.  But,  like  Don  Quixote,  we  take 
part  against  the  puppets,  and  quite  as  impertinently. 
We  dare  not  contemplate  an  Atlantis,  a  scheme,  out  of 
which  our  coxcombical  moral  sense  is  for  a  little  transi- 
tory ease  excluded.  We  have  not  the  courage  to  imagine 
a  state  of  things  for  which  there  is  neither  reward  nor 
punishment.  We  cling  to  the  painful  necessities  of 
shame  and  blame.    We  would  indict  our  very  dreams. 


ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF   LAST  CENTURY.   231 

Amid  the  mortifying  circumstances  attendant  upon 
growing  old,  it  is  something  to  have  seen  the  School  for 
Scandal  in  its  glory.  This  comedy  grew  out  of  Oon- 
greve  and  Wycherley,  hut  gathered  some  allays  of  the 
sentimental  comedy  which  followed  theirs.  It  is  im- 
possible that  it  should  be  now  acted^  though  it  continues, 
at  long  intervals,  to  be  announced  in  the  bills.  Its  hero, 
when  Palmer  played  it,  at  least,  was  Joseph  Surface. 
When  I  remember  the  gay  boldness,  the  graceful,  solemn 
plausibility,  the  measured  step,  the  insinuating  voice — to 
express  it  in  a  word— the  downright  acted  villainy  of  the 
part,  so  diiferent  from  the  pressure  of  conscious  actual 
wickedness — the  hypocritical  assumption  of  hypocrisy — 
which  made  eTack  so  deservedly  a  favorite  in  that  char- 
acter, I  must  needs  conclude  the  present  generation  of 
playgoers  more  virtuous  than  myself,  or  more  dense.  I 
freely  confess  that  he  divided  the  palm  with  me  with  his 
better  brother ;  that,  in  fact,  I  liked  him  quite  as  well. 
ISTot  but  there  are  passages — ^like  that,  for  instance,  where 
Joseph  is  made  to  refuse  a  pittance  to  a  poor  relation — 
incongruities  which  Sheridan  was  forced  upon  by  the  at- 
tempt to  join  the  artificial  with  the  sentimental  comedy, 
either  of  which  must  destroy  the  other — but  over  these 
obstructions  Jack's  manner  floated  him  so  lightly  that  a 
refusal  from  him  no  more  shocked  you  than  the  easy 
compliance  of  Charles  gave  you  in  reality  any  pleasure  ; 
you  got  over  the  paltry  question  as  quickly  as  you  could, 
to  get  back  into  the  regions  of  pure  comedy,  where  no 
cold  moral  reigns.  The  highly- artificial  manner  of  Pal- 
mer in  this  character  counteracted  every  disagreeable 
impression  which  you  might  have  received  from  the  con- 
trast, supposing  them  real,  between  the  two  brothers. 
You  did  not  believe  in  Joseph  with  the  same  faith  with 


232  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

which  you  believed  in  Charles.  The  latter  was  a  pleas- 
ant reality,  the  former  a  no  less  pleasant  poetical  foil  to 
it.  The  comedy,  I  have  said,  is  incongruous — a  mixture 
of  Congreve  with  sentimental  incompatibilities ;  the  gay- 
ety  upon  the  whole  is  buoyant,  but  it  required  the  con- 
summate art  of  Palmer  to  reconcile  the  discordant  ele- 
ments. 

A  player  with  Jack's  talents,  if  we  had  one  now, 
would  not  dare  to  do  the  part  in  the  same  manner.  He 
would  instinctively  avoid  every  turn  which  might  tend 
to  unrealize,  and  so  to  make  the  character  fascinating. 
He  must  take  his  cue  from  his  spectators,  who  would 
expect  a  bad  man  and  a  good  man  as  rigidly  opposed  to 
each  other  as  the  death-beds  of  those  geniuses  are  con- 
trasted in  the  prints,  which  I  am  sorry  to  say  have  dis- 
appeared from  the  windows  of  my  old  friend  Carrington 
Bowles,  of  St.  Paul's  Church-yard  memory — (an  exhi- 
bition as  venerable  as  the  adjacent  cathedral,  and  almost 
coeval)  of  the  bad  and  good  man  at  the  hour  of  death  ; 
where  the  ghastly  apprehensions  of  the  former — and 
truly  the  grim  phantom,  with  his  reality  of  a  toasting- 
fork  is  not  to  be  despised — so  finely  contrast  with  the 
meek,  complacent  kissing  of  the  rod — taking  it  in  like 
honey  and  butter — with  which  the  latter  submits  to  the 
scythe  of  the  gentle  bleeder,  Time,  who  wields  his  lancet 
with  the  apprehensive  finger  of  a  popular  young  ladies' 
surgeon.  What  flesh,  like  loving  grass,  would  not  covet 
to  meet  half-way  the  stroke  of  such  a  delicate  mower  ? 
John  Palmer  was  twice  an  actor  in  this  exquisite  part. 
He  was  playing  to  you  all  the  while  that  he  was  playing 
upon  Sir  Peter  and  his  lady.  You  had  the  first  intima- 
tion of  a  sentiment  before  it  was  on  his  lips.  His  altered 
voice  was  meant  to  you,  and  you  were  to  suppose  that 


ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  LAST  CENTURY.   233 

his  fictitious  co-flutterers  on  the  stage  perceived  nothing 
at  all  of  it.  What  was  it  to  you  if  that  half  reality,  the 
husband,  was  overreached  by  the  puppetry — or  the  thin 
thing  (Lady  Teazle's  reputation)  was  persuaded  it  was 
dying  of  a  plethory  ?  The  fortunes  of  Othello  and  Des- 
demona  were  not  concerned  in  it.  Poor  Jack  has  passed 
from  the  stage  in  good  time,  that  he  did  not  live  to  this 
our  age  of  seriousness.  The  pleasant  old  Teazle  King^ 
too,  is  gone  in  good  time.  His  manner  would  scarce 
have  passed  current  in  our  day.  We  must  love  or  hate — 
acquit  or  condemn — censure  or  pity — exert  our  detest- 
able coxcombry  of  moral  judgment  upon  everything. 
Joseph  Surface,  to  go  down  now,  must  be  a  downright 
revolting  villain — no  compromise — his  first  appearance 
must  shock  and  give  horror — his  specious  plausibilities, 
which  the  pleasurable  faculties  of  our  fathers  welcomed 
with  such  hearty  greetings,  knowing  that  no  harm  (dra- 
matic harm  even)  could  come  or  was  meant  to  come,  of 
them,  must  inspire  a  cold  and  killing  aversion.  Charles 
(the  real  canting  person  of  the  scene — for  the  hypocrisy 
of  Joseph  has  its  ulterior  legitimate  ends,  but  his  broth- 
er's professions  of  a  good  heart  centre  in  downright  self- 
satisfaction)  must  be  loved^  and  Joseph  Tiated,  To  balance 
one  disagreeable  reality  with  another,  Sir  Peter  Teazle 
must  be  no  longer  the  comic  idea  of  a  fretful  old  bache- 
lor bridegroom,  whose  teasings  (while  King  acted  it) 
were  evidently  as  much  played  oif  at  you,  as  they  were 
meant  to  concern  anybody  on  the  stage — he  must  be  a 
real  person,  capable  in  law  of  sustaining  an  injury — a 
person  toward  whom  duties  are  to  be  acknowledged— 
the  genuine  crim,  con,  antagonist  of  the  villainous  se- 
ducer Joseph.  To  realize  him  more,  his  sufferings  under 
his  unfortunate  match  must  have  the  downright  pun- 


234  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELTA. 

gency  of  life — ^must  (or  should)  make  you  not  mirth- 
ful but  uncomfortable,  just  as  the  same  predicament 
would  move  you  in  a  neighbor  or  old  friend.  The  de- 
licious scenes  which  give  the  play  its  name  and  zest, 
must  affect  you  in  the  same  serious  manner  as  if  you 
heard  the  reputation  of  a  dear  female  friend  attacked  in 
your  real  presence.  Orabtree  and  Sir  Benjamin — those 
poor  snakes  that  live  but  in  the  sunshine  of  your  mirth — 
must  be  ripened  by  this  hot-bed  process  of  realization 
into  asps  or  amphisbaanas ;  and  Mrs.  Candor — O  !  fright- 
ful ! — become  a  hooded  serpent.  Oh  !  who  that  remem- 
bers Parsons  and  Dodd — the  wasp  and  butterfly  of  the 
School  for  Scandal — in  those  two  characters ;  and  charm- 
ing natural  Miss  Pope,  the  perfect  gentlewoman,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  fine  lady  of  comedy,  in  this  latter 
part — would  forego  the  true  scenic  delight — the  escape 
from  life — the  oblivion  of  consequences — the  holiday 
barring  out  of  the  pedant  Reflection — those  Saturnalia 
of  two  or  three  brief  hours,  well  won  from  the  world — 
to  sit  instead  at  one  of  our  modem  plays — to  have  his 
coward  conscience  (that,  forsooth,  must  not  be  left  for 
a  moment)  stimulated  with  perpetual  appeals  —  dulled 
rather,  and  blunted,  as  a  faculty  without  repose  must 
be — and  his  moral  vanity  pampered  with  images  of  no- 
tional justice,  notional  beneficence,  lives  saved  without 
the  spectator's  risk,  and  fortunes  given  away  that  cost 
the  author  nothing  ? 

No  piece  was,  perhaps,  ever  so  completely  cast  in  all 
its  parts  as  this  manager* 8  comedy.  Miss  Farren  had 
succeeded  to  Mrs.  Abington  in  Lady  Teazle ;  and  Smith, 
the  original  Charles,  had  retired  when  I  first  saw  it. 
The  rest  of  the  characters,  with  very  slight  exceptions, 
remained.    I  remember  it  was  then  the  fashion  to  cry 


ARTIFICIAL  COMEDY  OF  LAST  CENTURY.   235 

down  John  Kemble,  who  took  the  part  of  Charles  after 
Smith;  but,  I  thought,  very  unjustly.  Smith,  I  fancy, 
was  more  airy,  and  took  the  eye  with  a  certain  gayety  of 
person.  He  brought  with  him  no  sombre  recollections 
of  tragedy.  He  had  not  to  expiate  the  fault  of  having 
pleased  beforehand  in  lofty  declamation.  He  had  no 
sins  of  Hamlet  or  of  Eichard  to  atone  for.  His  failure  in 
these  parts  was  a  passport  to  success  in  one  of  so  oppo- 
site a  tendency.  But,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  weighty 
sense  of  Kemble  made  up  for  more  personal  incapacity 
than  he  had  to  answer  for.  His  harshest  tones  in  this 
part  came  steeped  and  dulcified  in  good-humor.  He 
made  his  defects  a  grace.  His  exact  declamatory  man- 
ner, as  he  managed  it,  only  served  to  convey  the  points 
of  his  dialogue  with  more  precision.  It  seemed  to  head 
the  shafts  to  carry  them  deeper.  IsTot  one  of  his  spar- 
kling sentences  was  lost.  I  remember  minutely  how  he 
delivered  each  in  succession,  and  cannot  by  any  effort 
imagine  how  any  of  them  could  be  altered  for  the  better. 
No  man  could  deliver  brilliant  dialogue — the  dialogue  of 
Congreve  or  of  Wycherley — because  none  understood 
it — half  so  well  as  John  Kemble.  His  Valentine,  in  Love 
for  Love,  was,  to  my  recollection,  faultless.  He  flagged 
sometimes  in  the  intervals  of  tragic  passion.  He  would 
slumber  over  the  level  parts  of  an  heroic  character.  His 
Macbeth  has  been  known  to  nod.  But  he  always  seemed 
to  me  to  be  particularly  alive  to  pointed  and  witty  dia- 
logue. The  relaxing  levities  of  tragedy  have  not  been 
touched  by  any  since  him — the  playful,  court-bred  spirit 
in  which  he  condescended  to  the  players  in  Hamlet — the 
sportive  relief  which  he  threw  into  the  darker  shades  of 
Richard— disappeared  with  him.  He  had  his  sluggish 
moods,  his  torpors — but  they  were  the  halting-stones 


236  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

and  resting-place  of  his  tragedy — politic  savings,  and 
fetches  of  the  breath — husbandry  of  the  lungs,  where 
Nature  pointed  him  to  be  an  economist — ^rather,  I  think, 
than  errors  of  the  judgment.  They  were,  at  worst,  less 
painful  than  the  eternal,  tormenting,  unappeasable  vigi- 
lance— the  "  lidless  dragon-eyes  "  of  present  fashionable 
tragedy. 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  MUNDEN. 

Not  many  nights  ago,  I  had  come  home  from  seeing 
this  extraordinary  performer  in  Cockletop ;  and  when  I 
retired  to  my  pillow,  his  whimsical  image  still  stuck  by 
me,  in  a  manner  as  to  threaten  sleep.  In  vain  I  tried  to 
divest  myself  of  it,  by  conjuring  up  the  most  opposite 
associations.  I  resolved  to  be  serious.  I  raised  up  the 
gravest  topics  of  life;  private  misery,  public  calamity. 
All  would  not  do : 

— "  There  the  antic  sate 
Mocking  our  state  " — 

his  queer  visnomy — his  bewildering  costume — all  the 
strange  things  which  he  had  raked  together— his  serpen- 
tine rod,  swagging  about  in  his  pocket — Cleopatra's  tear, 
and  the  rest  of  his  relics — O'Keefe's  wild  farce,  and  his 
wilder  commentary — till  the  passion  of  laughter,  like 
grief  in  excess,  relieved  itself  by  its  own  weight,  invit- 
ing the  sleep  which,  in  the  first  instance,  it  had  driven 
away. 

But  I  was  not  to  escape  so  easily.  No  sooner  did  I 
fall  into  slumbers,  than  the  same  image,  only  more  per- 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  MUNDEN.  237 

plexing,  assailed  me  in  the  shape  of  dreams.  Not  one 
Munden,  but  five  hundred,  were  dancing  before  me,  like 
the  faces  which,  whether  you  will  or  no,  come  when  you 
have  been  taking  opium — all  the  strange  combinations, 
which  this  strangest  of  all  strange  mortals  ever  shot  his 
proper  countenance  into,  from  the  day  he  came  commis- 
sioned to  dry  up  the  tears  of  the  town  for  the  loss  of  the 
now  almost  forgotten  Edwin,  O  for  the  power  of  the 
pencil  to  have  fixed  them  when  I  awoke !  A  season  or 
two  since,  there  was  exhibited  a  Hogarth  gallery.  I  do 
not  see  why  there  should  not  be  a  Munden  gallery.  In 
richness  and  variety,  the  latter  would  not  fall  far  short 
of  the  former. 

There  is  one  face  of  Farley,  one  face  of  Knight,  one 
(but  what  a  one  it  is !)  of  Liston ;  but  Munden  has  none 
that  you  can  properly  pin  down,  and  call  Ids.  When  you 
think  he  has  exhausted  his  battery  of  looks,  in  unac- 
countable warfare  with  your  gravity,  suddenly  he  sprouts 
out  an  entirely  new  set  of  features,  like  Hydra.  He  is 
not  one,  but  legion ;  not  so  much  a  comedian  as  a  com- 
pany. If  his  name  could  be  multiplied  like  his  counte- 
nance, it  might  fill  a  play-bill.  He,  and  he  alone,  liter- 
ally makes  faces  ;  applied  to  any  other  person,  the  phrase 
is  a  mere  figure,  denoting  certain  modifications  of  the 
human  countenance.  Out  of  some  invisible  wardrobe 
he  dips  for  faces,  as  his  friend  Suett  used  for  wigs,  and 
fetches  them  out  as  easily.  I  should  not  be  surprised  to 
see  him  some  day  put  out  the  head  of  a  river-horse  ;  or 
come  forth  a  pewitt,  or  lapwing,  some  feathered  meta- 
morphosis. 

I  have  seen  this  gifted  actor  in  Sir  Christopher  Curry 
— in  old  Dornton — diffuse  a  glow  of  sentiment  which  has 
made  the  pulse  of  a  crowded  theatre  beat  like  that  of  one 


238  THE  ESSAYS  OF  ELIA. 

man;  when  he  has  come  in  aid  of  the  pulpit,  doing  good 
to  the  moral  heart  of  a  people,  I  have  seen  some  faint 
approaches  to  this  sort  of  excellence  in  other  players. 
But  in  the  grand  grotesque  of  farce,  Munden  stands  out 
as  single  and  unaccompanied  as  Hogarth.  Hogarth, 
strange  to  tell,  had  no  followers.  The  school  of  Munden 
began,  and  must  end,  with  himself. 

Can  any  man  wonder  like  him?  can  any  man  see 
ghosts  like  him?  or  fight  with  his  own  shadow — "  sessa" 
— as  he  does  in  that  strangely-neglected  thing,  the  Cob- 
bler of  Preston — where  his  alternations  from  the  Cobbler 
to  the  Magnifico,  and  from  the  Magnifico  to  the  Cobbler, 
keep  the  brain  of  the  spectator  in  as  wild  a  ferment 
as  if  some  Arabian  Night  were  being  acted  before  him. 
Who,  like  him,  can  throw,  or  ever  attempted  to  throw,  a 
preternatural  interest  over  the  commonest  daily-life  ob- 
jects ?  A  table,  or  a  joint-stool,  in  his  conception,  rises 
into  a  dignity  equivalent  to  Cassiopeia's  chair.  It  is  in- 
vested with  constellatory  importance.  You  could  not 
speak  of  it  with  more  deference,  if  it  were  mounted  into 
the  firmament.  A  beggar  in  the  hands  of  Michael  Ange- 
lo,  says  Fuseli,  rose  the  Patriarch  of  Poverty.  So  the 
gusto  of  Munden  antiquates  and  ennobles  what  it  touches. 
His  pots  and  his  ladles  are  as  grand  and  primal  as  the 
seething-pots  and  hooks  seen  in  old  prophetic  vision.  A 
tub  of  butter,  contemplated  by  him,  amounts  to  a  Pla- 
tonic idea.  He  understands  a  leg  of  mutton  in  its  quid- 
dity. He*  stands  wondering,  amid  the  commonplace  ma- 
terials of  hfe,  like  primeval  man  with  the  sun  and  stars 
about  him. 

THE   END. 


HEALTH  PRIMERS. 


J.  LANGDON   DOWN,   M.  D.,  F.  R.  C.  P. 
HENRY  POWER,  M.  B.,  F.  R.  C.  S. 
J.  MORTIMER-GRANVILLE,  M.  D. 
JOHN  TWEEDY,  F.  R.  C.  S. 

THOUGH  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  books  upon  health 
should  be  in  the  highest  degree  trustworthy,  it  is  notorious  that 
most  of  the  cheap  and  popular  kind  are  mere  crude  compilations  of 
incompetent  persons,  and  are  often  misleading  and  injurious.  Im- 
pressed by  these  considerations,  several  eminent  medical  and  scien- 
tific men  of  London  have  combined  to  prepare  a  series  of  Health 
Primers  of  a  character  that  shall  be  entitled  to  the  fullest  confidence. 
They  are  to  be  brief,  simple,  and  elementary  in  statement,  filled  with 
substantial  and  useful  information  suitable  for  the  guidance  of  grown- 
up people.  Each  primer  will  be  written  by  a  gentleman  specially 
competent  to  treat  his  subject,  while  the  critical  supervision  of  the 
books  is  in  the  hands  of  a  committee  who  will  act  as  editors. 

As  these  little  books  are  produced  by  English  authors,  they  are 
naturally  based  very  much  upon  English  experience,  but  it  matters 
little  whence  illustrations  upon  such  subjects  are  drawn,  because  the 
essential  conditions  of  avoiding  disease  and  preserving  health  are  to 
a  great  degree  everywhere  the  same. 

VOLUMES  OF  THE  SERIES. 


Exercise  and  Training.  (lUus 
trated.) 

Alcohol :  Its  Use  and  Abase. 

The  House  and  its  Surround- 
ings. 

Premature  Death :  Its  Promo- 
tion or  Prevention. 

Personal  Appearances  in 
Health  and  Disease.  (Il- 
lustrated.) 

Baths  and  Bathing. 


The  Heart  and  its  Functions. 
The  Head 

Clothing  and  Dress. 
Water. 

The  Skin  and  its  Troubles. 
Fatigue  and  Pain. 
The  Ear  and  Hearing. 
The  Eye  and  Vision. 
Temperature  in  Healtli  and 
Disease. 


In  square  16mo  volumes,  cloth,  price,  40  cents  each. 


Far  Bale  hy  all  booksellers.    Any  volume  mailed,  post-paid^  to  any 
address  in  the  United  States,  on  receipt  of  price. 

D.  A  PPL  ETON  &^  CO.,  549  &  551  Broadway,  New  York. 


PRIMERS 

IN  SCIENCE,  HISTORY,  and  LITERATURE. 
18mo Flexible  cloth,  45  cents  each. 


I.— Edited  by  Professors  HUXLEY,  ROSCOE,  and  BALFOUR 

STEWART. 

SCIENCE    PRIMERS. 


Chemistry H.  E.  Roscob. 

Physics . . .  Balpoub  Stewabt. 
Physical  G  eography ....  A. 
Gbikib. 

Geology... A.  Geikie. 

Physiology M.  Foster. 

Astronomy..  .J.  N.  Lockter. 
IL— Edited  by  J.  R.  GREEN,  M.  A.,  Examimr  in  the  School 
of  Modern  History  at  Oxford. 
HISTORY    PRIMERS. 


Botany J.  D.  Hooker. 

Logic W.  S.  Jeyons. 

Inventional  Geometry,  W. 

G.  Spencer. 
Pianoforte Franklin 

Taylor. 
Political  Economy W.  S. 

Jevons. 


Greece 


C.  A.  Ftppb. 


Rome M.  Cbbishton. 


Europe.. 


.E.  A.  Freeman. 


Old  Greek  Life J.  P. 

Mahappt. 
Roman  Antiquities... A.  S. 

Welkins. 
Geography. . . George  Grove. 


IIL—Edited  by  J.  R.  GREEN,  M.  A. 
LITERATURE    PRIMERS. 


English  Grammar R. 

Morris. 
English  Literature Stop- 

POBD  Brooke. 

Philology J.  Peile. 

Classical  Geography.... M. 

F.  TOZBR. 


Shakespeare E.  DowDEN. 

Studies  in  Bryant,  J.  Aldbn. 
Greek  Literature,  R.  C.  Jebb. 
English  Grammar  Exer- 
cises, R.  Morris. 

Homer W.  B.  Gladstone. 

(Others  in  preparation.) 
The  object  of  these  primers  is  to  convey  information  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  make  it  both  intelligible  and  interesting  to  very  young 
pupils,  and  so  to  discipline  their  minds  as  to  incline  them  to  more 
eystematic  after-studies.  They  are  not  only  an  aid  to  the  pupil,  but 
to  the  teacher,  lightening  the  task  of  each  by  an  agreeable,  easy,  and 
natural  method  of  instruction.  In  the  Science  Series  some  simple 
experiments  have  been  devised,  leading  up  to  the  chief  truths  of  each 
science.  By  this  means  the  pupil's  interest  is  excited,  and  the  memory 
is  impressed  so  as  to  retain  without  diflSculty  the  facts  brought  under 
observation.  The  woodcuts  which  illustrate  these  primers  serve  the 
Bame  purpose,  embellishing  and  explaining  the  text  at  the  same  time. 
D.  APPLETON  ^  CO.,  549  &  551  Broadway,  Neiv  York. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRAI 
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